Yoky Matsuoka Trailblazes Neurobotic Prosthetics
By James Moreau | 10 Nov, 2025

Developing a neuro-controlled prosthetic hand led a former top pro tennis player to positions of tech entrepreneurship and leadership.

Yoky Matsuoka combined robotics, engineering, technology, and biology to achieve breakthroughs that have advanced the field of neuro-controlled prosthetics or neurobotics.

Once upon a time Matsuoka was a top 25 tennis player in Japan.  The sport inspired her college fascination with the possibility of a tennis-playing robot.  Her studies in prosthetics allowed her to begin writing code for humanoid hands and arms. 

Those efforts led to the development of Anatomically Correct Testbed robotic hand in 2010 while she was directing the Neurobotics Lab at the University of Washington and serving as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon.  This robotic hand contains an intricate tendon structure that mimicks the human muscular system and allows precise finger movements controlled by neural signals from the brain.

In 2009 Matsuoka co-founded Google X, Google’s research and development lab.  She contributed innovations for the company’s medical portfolio and to Project Loon which sought to expand internet connectivity through stratospheric balloons and Waymo self-driving cars.

She served as Chief Technology Officer at home automation company Nest from 2010 until it was acquired by Google in 2015.  She led development of Nest’s learning thermostat by leveraged machine learning to help users save energy. 

Matsuoka held a board director position at HP for two years before focusing on entrepreneurship full time. 

In 2021 she launched Yohana, an AI-powered personal assistant that can book appointments, research hotels, and hire a handyman among other tasks.  Yohana is a subsidiary of Panasonic’s business incubator Panasonic Well.  Matsuoka became the division’s CEO in 2023.

Matsuoka earned a bachelor of electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley in 1993 and a master’s and Ph.D. from MIT in the same discipline, concentrating in artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience.

The 54-year-old currently resides in Cupertino, California.