Wavelet Medical Receives ARPA-H Award to Support Validation of Novel Fetal Brain Monitoring Technology

NEW YORK, June 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Wavelet Medical announced today an award from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to support validation of its novel fetal brain monitoring technology. The award of up to $2.14M over 12 months commences in June.

ARPA-H, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was established in 2022 to advance high-potential, high-impact biomedical and health research that cannot be readily accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity. The agency's awardees are developing entirely new ways to tackle the hardest challenges in health in years, not decades.

Wavelet Medical, founded by Liz Golden (CEO), Dr. Emily Lee (Chief Medical Officer), and Dr. Jose Cortes-Briones (Head of Science), is developing the first non-invasive, AI-powered fetal electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring platform to detect fetal brain distress in real time and prevent avoidable brain injury at birth.

For decades, obstetrics has relied primarily on fetal heart rate monitoring (FHM), a tool that does not directly measure neurological function and is indeterminate in up to 85% of births. The result: missed cases of hypoxia leading to lifelong disability, and unnecessary C-sections driven by false positives. Each year in the U.S., more than 35,000 infants suffer brain injuries at birth and approximately one-third of births are delivered via caesarian section.

Wavelet changes the paradigm by measuring the organ that first shows signs of fetal distress: the brain. Using non-invasive EEG captured through the mother's abdomen and reconstructed with proprietary AI algorithms, Wavelet identifies auditory-evoked brain responses that signal neurological distress - without invasive scalp electrodes or added risk to mother or baby.

"We see an acute need to redefine what 'standard of care' means in fetal medicine - and to save lives," said Liz Golden, CEO of Wavelet. "This ARPA-H award will enable us to further advance and scale our non-invasive fetal brain monitoring platform to improve outcomes for patients."

Wavelet is currently being tested at three clinical sites and preparing for expanded trials.

About Wavelet Medical
Wavelet Medical (LinkedIn), founded by Liz Golden, Dr. Emily Lee, and Dr. Jose Cortes-Briones, has developed a non-invasive, AI-powered fetal monitoring solution that harnesses the clinical promise of EEG without compromising the health of the mother or baby. This type of monitoring holds the promise for better outcomes both for mother and child, by reducing the risk of brain injury during delivery and better matching C-sections or other interventions to clinically appropriate situations. The Wavelet device detects fetal brain signals through the mother's abdomen, extracting auditory signals and evaluating them to detect when there is fetal distress occurring in real-time.

Media Contact:
Kara Spak for Wavelet
[email protected]

SOURCE Wavelet