Karla Gleichauf

About Karla Gleichauf

I am a Research Scientist with over a decade of experience at the intersection of health, sensing, and Artificial Intelligence. My work focuses on decoding the complexities of our sleep and physiological rhythms to help us live healthier lives.I characterize my approach as \"full-stack research.\" In addition to large-scale data analysis, I own the entire pipeline from scientific inquiry to shipping the product. I explore the messy reality of sensor data, identify new data-driven features, build ML models, develop prototypes, run experiments, and write production code that brings these features to life.Selected Impact: Fitbit Sleep Profile & Sleep Animals I am the inventor of the Fitbit Sleep Profile & Sleep Animals, where I led the end-to-end R&D for this flagship feature. I guided the effort from initial hypothesis to a global launch reaching millions of users, transforming complex sleep architecture data into an intuitive, personality-based user experience.https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/devices/fitbit/fitbit-sleep-profile-animals/Current Focus: Generative AI for Health I am currently building a conversational sleep coach for the Fitbit Personal Health Coach powered by Google’s Gemini. I developed the Agent Task that ingests longitudinal wearable data to generate structured health reports; these reports serve as the context for an LLM to create dynamic, personalized sleep content at scale. Additionally, I lead sleep R&D initiatives—including study design, data science, and ML modeling—to ensure scientific rigor within the Personal Health Agent pipeline.My research on sleep patterns, circadian rhythms, and chronic disease risk has been published in Nature Medicine, the Journal of Medical Internet Research, and Chronobiology International.I am passionate about using AI to bridge the gap between complex physiological data and actionable health guidance.

Experience

1. Staff Research Scientist at Google

   Google

   Feb 2021 — Present · San Francisco, CA, US

Education

• Stanford University

  Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology, Civil and Environmental Engineering

  2009 — 2015

• Rice University

  Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Civil & Environmental Engineering

  2004 — 2008

• Stanford University

  Masters in Science, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology

  2008 — 2009

Skills

• Water Resources
• Microsoft Excel
• Powerpoint
• Sql
• Statistics
• Sklearn
• Photoshop
• Fluid Mechanics
• Machine Learning
• Data Mining
• Python
• Science
• Mysql
• Engineering
• Research
• Technical Writing
• Pandas
• Fluid Dynamics
• Matlab
• Gis
• Data Storytelling
• Data Visualization
• Data Analysis
• Illustrator
• Environmental Awareness
• Statistical Analysis
• Modeling
• Data Science
• Meteorology
• Experimental Design