Ipek Ensari, Ph.D

Advancing women’s health through patient-centered wearable data and AI

My research bridges mHealth and AI to rethink how women’s reproductive health is measured, understood, and treated. Our lab focuses on urgent, often overlooked conditions like endometriosis, adenomyosis, fibroids, and chronic pelvic pain that profoundly affect millions of lives yet remain poorly understood.
I’m an Assistant Professor in the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health at the Icahn School of Medicine and the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai.

Speaking Engagements

Selected Talks

Talks Overseas

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ENDOMIC Media Coverage

Check out our chat with Sabrina Furminger on the YVR Screen Scene Podcast.

Research

We design and run studies that meet people where they are: on their phones and wearables. Using mobile health (mHealth) apps, activity trackers, and sensors—combined with advanced data science and machine learning—we study real-world symptom patterns in those at risk and those traditionally underserved. Our goal is to turn patient-generated data into insights that improve care, reduce diagnostic delay, and close gaps in health equity.

Alongside our peer‑reviewed publications, we share ongoing findings and reflections in our lab blog, Data Bytes, written for our research participants and the broader community. None of this work would be possible without the people who contribute their time, experiences, and health data—we are deeply grateful for their trust.

Support from visionary partners and funders fuels this work at the intersection of digital health, AI, genomics, and patient‑centered research. If you’re interested in collaborating, hosting a conversation, or exploring how our work can inform policy, clinical care, or public dialogue, please contact Dr. Ipek Ensari at ipek.ensari@mssm.edu.

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About

Female research scientist speaker at the Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Conference at New York Academy of Sciences NYAS.
By day, my mind lives in the intersection of biomedical informatics, artificial intelligence, and women’s health. By night, I am a volunteer data scientist for a non-profit social impact organization. My training background spans both patient-oriented clinical research and data techniques to predict physical activity, sleep, physiological (e.g., blood pressure), and psychological outcomes (e.g., depressive symptoms). Mentoring students and fellows in our research projects is one of my favorite aspects of being a professor and lab director. I frequently think of the “digital data for good” motto – how we can maximize the return of benefits to our participants from their research data. In 2020, I collaborated with Camille Hollet-French, a Vancouver-based filmmaker, to make a documentary short about endometriosis at Imagine Science Films, sponsored by Science Sandbox at Simons Foundation. The end product is ENDOMIC (@abloodycrisis), which had its world premiere at the 2021 Slamdance Film Festival.

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You can follow our lab website for current mentoring activities and research opportunities for students at the Ensari Lab at the Icahm School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

ENDOMIC

An exhaustive meta-analytic review documenting a mysterious “women’s” issue, otherwise known as endometriosis.[1] 

[1]term used to describe a clinical etiology that thus far has only been identified in primates with a female reproductive system, an anatomical structure of decidedly lower importance in comparison to those of the male primate.

ENDOMIC is a “mocumentary” through the lens of satire about modern medicine’s and society’s take on endometriosis. Using a mock-meets-doc format, the film weaves in real patient experiences in parallel with a narrative exploration of its history in the scientific literature, disparities in diagnosis and treatment, and lack of research funding, to raise awareness and help sense-making for patients.

You can follow ENDOMIC (@abloodycrisis) on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Click below to read more about the film’s world premiere at the 2021 Slamdance Film Festival, media coverage, and reviews.

Other Work – E2AC

For more information on the background and methodology of the Impact Assessment Scale (IAS) development for Entertainment to Affect Change (E2AC), you can check out the project’s Github repository. The site is regularly updated whenever there is a new iteration of the data analyses to validate the factor structure and other properties of the IAS.

News and Events

Female research scientist speaker mobile health data methods, New York City.

Contact

Female research scientist speaker at the Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Conference at New York Academy of Sciences NYAS. Get in touch

Have a speaking request, collaboration idea, or media inquiry? Please reach out to our team via ipek.ensari@mssm.edu. Thank you.