Introducing Dr. Lydia Roos: Q&A with WONE’s New Chief Scientific Officer
We’re thrilled to announce that Dr. Lydia Roos has joined WONE as our Chief Scientific Officer! Lydia is a leading health psychologist and stress scientist with a wealth of experience from institutions like UCLA and the Stanford School of Medicine. She’s dedicated her career to understanding the psychology and physiology of stress and has worked extensively with health tech organisations to bring science to the forefront of innovation.
At WONE, we believe that placing science at the heart of everything we do is key to achieving our mission. Lydia’s leadership will help us continue building evidence-based solutions that empower organisations and their people.
To celebrate her arrival, we sat down with Lydia for a quick Q&A. Read on to learn more about her background, what drives her work, and how she will help drive WONE’s mission forwards.
Welcome to WONE, Lydia! Can you tell us a little about your journey and what sparked your interest in the science of stress?
I’m thrilled to be a part of WONE! I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of why two people can experience the same event but think about and respond to it wildly differently. I am also the kind of person that is able to physically feel my stress responses very acutely (psychologists call it having high “interoception”), which made me curious about what exactly is happening at a biological level. After receiving my BS (BSc) in Psychology, I worked as a research assistant at the Medical University of South Carolina, where I was exposed to the concepts of stress reactivity, coping, and health behaviors. I was enamoured. I discovered the field of Health Psychology (the study of how the brain and body, environment, and health behaviors interact to influence both mental and physical health) and decided to make it my life’s work. I earned my PhD in Health Psychology, with a focus on stress psychology and physiology, well-being, and resilience, from UNC Charlotte. I then conducted research at UCLA’s Lab for Stress Assessment and Research and the Stanford School of Medicine before deciding to move into Health Tech. In addition to serving as an advisor to several startups, I founded EvolveWell Research Partners in 2023 to allow Health Tech companies to advance their science and validate their products, which eventually led me to working with WONE!
As someone who has worked with both academic institutions and health tech companies, what do you think is the biggest challenge or opportunity, in translating scientific research into real-world solutions?
One of the biggest challenges lies in balancing scientific rigor with user experience, while navigating the fact that science is nuanced and ever-changing. In academia, we have the luxury of time to perfect methodologies and validate findings comprehensively. But in the health tech world, companies face market pressures to move quickly, and the good companies out there will try to do so while maintaining scientific validity.
The exciting opportunity here is that we can actually transform this challenge into a strength, and with the right leadership, health tech companies can uniquely position themselves to bridge the gap between scientific findings and real-world solutions. In my opinion, there are a few key ways to do this:
- We can set ourselves up for success in creating effective solutions with a high probability of success by implementing a robust scientific foundation and prioritizing evidence from the start.
- We can continually adapt the product while maintaining scientific rigor by leveraging the collection of real-world data at scale, essentially creating living laboratories that both validate and improve our solutions.
- We can use nuanced findings—both in scientific research and in your own data—instead of grumbling about how they’re not “easy”, which turns the challenge of complex data into an opportunity for greater personalization and more effective interventions.
Something I love about WONE is that they built science into the development process from day one. Not as a checkbox exercise, but as a core part of how WONE iterates and improves. WONE recognizes that when science is your foundation rather than an afterthought, you can move both quickly AND confidently.
You’ve been a scientific advisor to multiple health tech companies - how does WONE’s approach to wellbeing and resilience stand out to you?
3 things really stand out to me:
Focus on stress and resilience: WONE recognizes that, although mental health and physical health disorders are all important to manage on their own, stress is often an underlying factor, with stress either preceding or exacerbating many of the health issues we care about preventing and treating the most. Not only do these mental and physical health issues greatly affect quality of life, but 9 out of 10 life-threatening diseases are linked to stress. But it’s not only impactful for individuals - a plethora of research points to stress as being one of the largest contributors to employee performance, absenteeism, turnover, and, as we are seeing in WONE’s own research, business risk. In fact, a report from the American Institute of Stress found that job stress costs U.S. employers more than $300 billion annually due to absenteeism, turnover, decreased productivity as well as direct medical, legal and insurance costs. The World Health Organization estimates depression and anxiety alone - of which stress is a key factor - cost the global economy $1 trillion annually in lost productivity.
Focus on scientific validity and impact: Few companies that exist outside of FDA-regulated spaces truly care about the scientific validity of their product beyond what is needed to sell. WONE prioritizes having the highest level of scientific validity in terms of both measurement and interventions because they know that’s how we can (1) make the greatest impact through accurate recommendations and scientifically-backed interventions, and (2) effectively measure our impact to ensure the quality of the product and continually improve based on the latest evidence.
Data sources: WONE truly understands the importance of gathering both physiological and self-report data. Wearable data is great for giving objective indicators of health behaviors (e.g., sleep and physical activity) and biomarkers of physiological stress states that are incredibly important, but wearables can’t tell us how something thinks and feels, or why. Combining the two allows us to understand not just the what, but also the why and how. That understanding paves the way for effective, personalized interventions. And, it’s just the beginning!
Looking ahead, what trends or developments in the field of stress science are you most excited to explore at WONE?
I'm particularly excited about the growing potential of combining data from multiple sources to create a more complete picture of stress and wellbeing. We're entering an era where we can integrate physiological data from wearables, psychological assessments, behavioral patterns, and environmental factors to understand stress in unprecedented ways. This multi-modal approach allows us to capture not just what's happening in the body, but also the cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social aspects of stress.
What makes this especially powerful at WONE is our ability to analyze these diverse data streams together, identifying patterns and relationships that weren't visible before. This comprehensive approach will help us develop more personalized, context-aware interventions that consider both the biological and psychological aspects of stress.
Something that may not be obvious to people outside of WONE and our client base, is that we don’t just focus on improving individual resilience. We use our insights to better understand organizational patterns and help companies use data to create healthier work environments at scale. Our bespoke interventions and recommendations allow us to truly tackle both of the major contributors to work-related stress and performance: the individual and the environment.