Yoky Matsuoka

CTO, Nest and co-founder of Google X, Nest Labs

Bio

Yoky Matsuoka grew up assuming she would become a professional tennis player, but instead earned a BS degree from UC Berkeley and a PhD from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science in the fields of artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience. Subsequently, she became a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, then the University of Washington, developing robotic devices for rehabilitating and assisting the human body and brain. This work led her to the MacArthur award and being named one of the Brilliant Ten by Popular Science magazine and one of the Top 10 Women to Watch in 2010 by Barbie. In late 2009, Ms. Matsuoka joined Google[x] as one of the three founding members before taking her position as vice president of technology at Nest. She was named CEO of a small startup, Quanttus, in 2015, and a year later joined Apple’s Health Group before returning to Nest in 2017.