Our Story
Every child deserves the chance to grow up emotionally resilient—and every family deserves tools they can trust along the way.
Biobe was born from a shared belief: that early mental health support should be accessible, evidence-based, and grounded in real-world needs. Our team of clinicians, researchers, and innovators came together to bridge the growing gap in pediatric mental health care—not with more burden, but with better solutions.
What started as a research-driven effort has grown into a mission: to equip families and pediatric care teams with simple, powerful tools to help children thrive—starting in the earliest years.
Foundational Research at University of Michigan
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Dr. Ellen McGinnis was working her PhD in Clinical Psychology, studying the behavior and physiology of young children with mental health disorders.
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Dr. Ryan McGinnis was working on his PhD in Mechanical Engineering studying how to measure behavior and physiology using wearable sensor technology.
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Together, at the University of Michigan, they developed an early version of Biobe's system and assessed mental health in 96 children ages 3-8 using sensors.
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Their ultimate goal was to create a tool that could add objective data to child mental health assessments.
Early Publications and Media
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Ellen's and Ryan’s research led to key early publications:
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"Movements indicate threat response phases in children at-risk for anxiety" (2017, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics)
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"Wearable Sensors and Machine Learning Diagnose Anxiety and Depression in Young Children" (2018, IEEE International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics), and "Wearable sensors detect childhood internalizing disorders during mood induction task" (2018, PLOS ONE).
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"Rapid detection of internalizing diagnosis in young children enabled by wearable sensors and machine learning" (2019, PLOS ONE).
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"Giving Voice to Vulnerable Children: Machine Learning Analysis of Speech Detects Anxiety and Depression in Early Childhood" (2019, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics).
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Core technologies were highlighted in several local and national public media outlets including
Psychology Today (How AI Can Detect Children with Anxiety and Depression, 2019), Mashable
(Wearable sensor may help screen for anxiety and depression in kids, 2019), New York Post (AI can detect depression in children’s speech: study, 2019), WCAX (UVM researchers study signs of childhood depression in speech, 2019 & UVM study helps pinpoint anxiety depression in young children, 2019) -
Dr. Nick Cheney joined the UVM faculty and began working with Ryan on machine learning for gaining insights from biomechanical time-series with wearable sensors. Estimating Biomechanical Time-Series with Wearable Sensors: A Systematic Review of Machine Learning Techniques (2019, Sensors).
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Dr. Ryan McGinnis received an NIH Trailblazer Award to develop a wearable sensor pipeline for
identifying digital biomarkers with machine learning, providing $640,000 in funding over three years (2019-2022). Just-In-Time Fall Prevention: Development of an mHealth Intervention for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis (2020, NIH).
Pilot Expansion
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The University of Michigan and Columbia University teamed up and used our Biobe app to assess children before and after a research intervention with 90 children demonstrating research utility.
Research Funding, Data Collection and Team Expansion
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Dr. Ryan McGinnis received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award for Platform for Characterizing
Transdiagnostic Markers of Disease from Wearable and Mobile Technologies, providing $500,000 in funding over five years (2021-2026). -
Dr. Ellen McGinnis received a NIH K23 Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award for Digital Phenotyping to Screen for Early Childhood Internalizing Disorders focused on building the app, providing $640,000 in funding over 4 years (2021-2024).
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Bryn Loftness joined the team, starting her PhD at the University of Vermont. Her focus was advancing and translating the teams’ core technologies.
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The Kid Study began at the University of Vermont, with data collected from 105 children, further validating wearable technology for detecting mental health concerns in young children.
Advancing Research and Translation Exploration
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The UVM KID Study enhanced the platform's ability to detect child anxiety with multimodal data, which was documented in "UVM KID Study: Identifying Multimodal Features and Optimizing Wearable Instrumentation to Detect Child Anxiety"(2022, IEEE EMBC).
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Another publication, "Advancing Digital Medicine with Wearables in the Wild" (2022, Sensors), outlined best practices for wearable technologies in healthcare.
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In Fall 2022, Biobe participated in the regional NSF I-Corps program, marking the beginning stages of the company’s growth beyond foundational research efforts.
Key Milestones for Non-Dilutive Fundraising
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Biobe released the ChAMP App, a scalable tool for early childhood mental health, documented in "The ChAMP App: A Scalable MHealth Technology for Detecting Digital Phenotypes of Early Childhood Mental Health" (2023, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics).
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In May 2023, Biobe won the grand prize at SparkVT, receiving $45,000 over two years to support product development and mentorship.
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In September 2023, CEO Bryn Loftness was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Program (GRFP), receiving $147,000 over three years to fund Biobe’s research and development. -
Following receiving the GRFP, the team was highlighted by UVM (Uncovering Digital Footprints of Anxiety in Young Children, 2023)
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Biobe also participated in the NSF I-Corps National Program in Spring 2023, receiving $50,000 for travel and customer discovery efforts. During this program, the team met directly with over 250 stakeholders across the country during the program to further understand the pain-points associated with early childhood mental health screening.
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The company secured $10,000 in customer discovery and prototype funding from the New York Innovation Node in late 2022 through early 2023.
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Dr. Nick Cheney received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award to develop more efficient and
effective machine learning algorithms and use them to extract digital biomarkers from a wearable sensor platform, providing $550,000 over five years (2023-2028). This brought Nick to over $13M in research projects led, and $50M in projects contributed to, that develop and apply such machine learning systems.
Translation Expansion and Public Launch
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Biobe publicly established itself as a company in 2024, following its steady growth and validation.
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In Spring 2024, Biobe participated in the Equalize program, which supports female-led academic startups.
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Dr. Ellen McGinnis was named an NIH 2024 Scholar, recognized in both the mobile Health Training Institute (mHTI) and the Coaching and Resources for Entrepreneurial Women (CREW) programs.
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A new paper, "Using Wearable Digital Devices to Screen Children for Mental Health Conditions: Ethical Promises and Challenges," was published in Sensors (2024), discussing the ethical considerations of using wearable technology for pediatric mental health.
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In February 2024, CEO Bryn Loftness delivered a TEDx talk introducing Biobe’s mission and technologies to a broader audience. Check out our talk below, which was featured as a Tedx 2024 Editors Pick.
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In June 2024, Biobe won the Grand Prize at LaunchVT, receiving $15,000 in funding and $5,000 in legal services tosupport pilot studies. Watch our pitch below!
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In September 2024, Biobe was officially incorporated as a Delaware C-Corp, positioning us for long term scalability.
Sprout Launch and Team Expansion
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In March 2025, Biobe was awarded the 2025 UVM Ventures Award, receiving $28,000 in non-dilutive funding to support the Sprout Foundations Deck product launch.
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In June 2025, a team of 3 UVM ARC students joined Biobe for a year-long internship.
Explore our journey
From early research and prototypes to national partnerships and product launch, explore the milestones that have shaped Biobe’s path—and our commitment to children’s emotional wellness.