Erin Smith

Erin Smith is an American inventor and investor. She founded FacePrint, a medical technology venture focused on developing facial recognition software for assisting in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.

Biography Erin Smith was raised in Lenexa, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. She had also previously watched the show Lie To Me, which features a scientist character based on Paul Ekman, who studied facial expressions, which contributed to her interest in developing technology to detect Parkinson's by monitoring faces. Smith continued to watch more video interviews of people with Parkinson's and conducted her own research. Additionally, Smith received mentoring from the University of Missouri–Kansas City Small Business & Technology Development Center for two years to transform FacePrint into a viable business. She graduated high school in 2018 and was accepted by Stanford University, but deferred admission to become a 2018 Thiel Fellow for two years.

As a student at Stanford University, Smith became an ambassador for the IF/THEN collective, an organization that seeks to support women in STEM careers. 2018 Davidson Fellow 2018 Global Teen Leader 2018 Regeneron STS Scholar by the Society for Science and the Public 2018 Thiel Fellow 2019 Wired Top Health Startup 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 2020 Voices of the Year, Seventeen Magazine