# Maria Artunduaga

> Maria Artunduaga is a Colombian-born physician-scientist, inventor and founder and CEO of Samay (formerly Respira Labs), a Mountain View medtech startup building a wearable plus AI platform that uses patented acoustic resonance to monitor lung function at home. She walked away from a plastic surgery residency at the University of Chicago after losing her grandmother Sylvia, taught herself engineering, and turned a kitchen-table idea into a company that has won the world's most competitive medtech accelerator and landed her on Inc.'s 2025 Female Founders list. She holds an MD, an MPH and an MTM, has collected dozens of prizes, six issued patents, and publications in Nature, NEJM and PNAS.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Samay
- **Organizations:** Samay (formerly Respira Labs), Rock Health
- **From:** Colombia
- **Nationality:** Colombian
- **Education:** MD, Medical school (Colombia), Postdoctoral research, Human Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Plastic surgery residency (left to found company), University of Chicago Medicine, MPH, Global Public Health, University of Washington, MTM, Master of Translational Medicine, UC Berkeley and UCSF
- **Known for:** Founder and CEO of Samay, a medtech company building a wearable and AI platform for at-home lung monitoring, Inventor of a patented acoustic resonance sensing approach; six issued patents, Over 50 prizes as a physician-scientist and inventor

## Career timeline

- **2007** — Relocated from Colombia to the United States to pursue research and training
- **2010s** — Postdoctoral research in human genetics at Harvard Medical School; publications in Nature, NEJM, PNAS and Genetics in Medicine
- **2017** — Left a plastic surgery residency at the University of Chicago at age 34 to found Respira Labs after the death of her grandmother Sylvia
- **2018** — Named Entrepreneur of the Year at the Women in IT Awards and received the University of California ATHENA award
- **2019** — Selected as a Ferolyn Fellow at the Fogarty Innovation institute
- **2022** — NHLBI/NIH SBIR-supported development of a chest patch for monitoring lung health
- **2023** — Rebrands as Samay; presents at LSI USA '23
- **2024** — Wins the Global MedTech Innovator Award; first woman to lead a US-LATAM company to win MedTech Innovator; named to Bloomberg's 100 Innovators in Latin America
- **2025** — Named to Inc. Magazine's Female Founders list; Samay selected as American Thoracic Society innovation success story; Colombia's Best Startup
- **2026** — Continues building Samay's wearable plus AI respiratory platform; closed a seed round (last raised May 2026)

## Achievements

- Founder and CEO of Samay, a medtech company building a wearable and AI platform for at-home lung monitoring
- Inventor of a patented acoustic resonance sensing approach; six issued patents
- Over 50 prizes as a physician-scientist and inventor
- Peer-reviewed publications in Nature, NEJM, PNAS and Genetics in Medicine
- First woman to lead a US-LATAM company to win MedTech Innovator, surpassing over 1,300 global companies
- Inc. Magazine 2025 Female Founders list
- Bloomberg 100 Innovators in Latin America (2024)
- 2018 Women in IT Awards Entrepreneur of the Year and University of California ATHENA award
- Ferolyn Fellow, Fogarty Innovation
- Raised roughly $4.2M (about $4.58M total) in grants and investment, including NSF and NIH non-dilutive funding

## Latest updates

- **2025-01** — Named to Inc. Magazine's 2025 Female Founders list.
- **2026-05** — Closed a seed funding round for Samay's respiratory monitoring platform.

## Links

- Website: https://samayhealth.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/drartunduaga
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/respiralabs
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3dlN9nRBgs
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/samayhealth

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/maria-artunduaga
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-22