Watch Shriya in Action
About Shriya Srinivasan
Fewer than one in ten people with limb loss use advanced prosthetic devices, even when the engineering is state of the art. For Shriya Srinivasan, that gap reveals something every leader deploying new technology should understand: the failure point is almost always communication between human and machine, the interface rather than the hardware.
During her doctoral research at the MIT Media Lab's Biomechatronics Group, and working with surgical and clinical teams at Brigham and Women's Hospital, she developed the agonist-antagonist myoneural interface, a surgical paradigm that reconnects muscle pairs during amputation to preserve the brain's natural proprioceptive signaling. Patients gained not just control of robotic prostheses but sensation, the ability to feel where an artificial limb is in space without looking. The approach has been translated to clinical practice in dozens of patients.
Shriya's Keynote Topics
The most powerful innovation does not impose control. It works with the systems that already exist.
For centuries, humankind has tried to understand the mind. Today, scientists and engineers are doing something genuinely new: learning to communicate directly with the nervous system, the body's master control network that governs movement, sensation, emotion, and behavior.
In this talk, Shriya takes audiences to the frontier of neuroprosthetics, where four disciplines converge: surgery, robotics, microelectronics, and neuroscience. Drawing on work from the Harvard Bionics Lab, Shriya shares the stories behind the science: patients who regained the feeling of a lost limb, who slept through the night free of chronic pain after years of medication, who walked again with new control and
confidence. Audiences will also discover ingestible robots no larger than a daily vitamin that can sense and modulate the gut, opening an entirely new path to treating disease, from chronic pain to obesity.
Running through every example is a lesson for any organization facing change. The breakthroughs do not come from overriding the body or replacing what is already there. They come from understanding the body's own logic and working with it, until the line between human and machine begins to dissolve. Shriya closes by reframing the question that drives the field, and that should drive any innovator: not only “Can we restore what was lost?” but “What new capabilities can we unlock?”
Articles by Shriya Srinivasan
An ingestible self-propelling device for intestinal reanimation
February 2024Science RoboticsAn ingestible self-propelling device for intestinal reanimation
2024Science AdvancesA vibrating ingestible bioelectronic stimulator modulates gastric stretch receptors for illusory satiety
December 2023Science AdvancesA vibrating ingestible bioelectronic stimulator modulates gastric stretch receptors for illusory satiety
2023Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesNeural interfacing architecture enables enhanced motor control and residual limb functionality postamputation
February 2021Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesNeural interfacing architecture enables enhanced motor control and residual limb functionality postamputation
2021Science Translational MedicineAgonist-antagonist myoneural interface amputation preserves proprioceptive sensorimotor neurophysiology in lower limbs
December 2020Science Translational MedicineAgonist-antagonist myoneural interface amputation preserves proprioceptive sensorimotor neurophysiology in lower limbs
2020Scientific ReportsTowards functional restoration for persons with limb amputation: A dual-stage implementation of regenerative agonist-antagonist myoneural interfaces
February 2019Scientific ReportsTowards functional restoration for persons with limb amputation: A dual-stage implementation of regenerative agonist-antagonist myoneural interfaces
2019Science RoboticsOn prosthetic control: A regenerative agonist-antagonist myoneural interface
May 2017Science RoboticsOn prosthetic control: A regenerative agonist-antagonist myoneural interface
2017Shriya in the Media
Pioneers in pain relief: UF-led research team test injectable, battery-free neural implants
Shriya Srinivasan Named 2026 Sloan Research Fellow
From inflatable balloons to vibrating pills, scientists are getting creative with weight loss
Dance the audience can feel — through their phones
Creating a sense of feeling
NOVA - S51E15 "Building Stuff: Boost It!"
How a vibrating capsule could help curb obesity
This vibrating weight-loss pill seems to work—in pigs
Engineers develop a vibrating, ingestible capsule that might help treat obesity
30 Under 30 - Healthcare (2022)
HST student receives Delsys Prize for innovation
How AI is helping patients with prosthetics
How Shriya Works with Organizations
Each engagement is built around your goals and audience.
01 · WORKSHOPCracking Tough Problems Using Design Thinking for Healthcare Innovation: From Ambiguous Problems to Pilot-Ready Innovation Strategies
This workshop gives participants a structured way to move from feeling stuck to taking clear, testable action. It helps individuals and teams facing ambiguous problems, stalled ideas, or early-stage concepts that need sharper definition before they can become viable solutions.
The workshop is grounded in a proven design-thinking and innovation methodology that has helped launch many startups, including through partnerships with the CDC, major medtech companies, universities, and translational research programs. Participants learn how to define the right problem, identify the true user, map stakeholder incentives, and translate human friction into functional and technical specifications.
The workshop can be tailored for healthcare innovation, including medical devices, digital health tools, clinical workflow redesign, patient-facing technologies, and research translation. Case studies from prosthetics, human-machine interfaces, and biomedical device development show why promising technologies often fail to be adopted, and how better problem framing, user discovery, and early validation can reduce that risk.
The workshop can also include AI-enabled design methods. Participants may use AI tools for root-cause analysis, stakeholder mapping, persona development, competitive research, rapid prototyping, user-testing strategy, and pitch development. The goal is to use AI to accelerate iteration while preserving human judgment and domain expertise.
By the end, participants will have a concrete framework for turning vague problems into focused design challenges, viable concepts, and pilot-ready innovation strategies.
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