Her grandfather’s experience led her to create a Parkinson’s app

When Carolina senior Esha Agarwal began talking to patients with Parkison’s disease for a research project, she quickly discovered that compassion and clarity matter just as much as technical expertise.

“Especially for someone who just drove three hours from rural North Carolina for their appointment,” says Agarwal, a graduating senior studying environmental health science in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Her grandfather’s long road to diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, including two unnecessary knee replacements, exposed how confusing the medical journey can be for patients.

Agarwal was thinking of her grandfather when she developed outSMARTPD, an app to diagnose and monitor Parkinson’s disease, as a junior in high school. The app won the 2020 Congressional App Challenge.

Around that same time, she also explored how environmental factors influence health. Agarwal studied how fertilizer runoff contributes to harmful algal blooms — and how those blooms may be linked to Parkinson’s disease. The experience shaped how she thought about medicine and research. Understanding patients, she realized, means understanding what surrounds them — their work, their environment, their daily exposures.

That thought remained top of mind as she shadowed neurologists and listened to patients describe what they’d need out of an app like outSMARTPD.

“But I needed a credible method to determine if the app was effective and accurate,” Agarwal says. “I needed a clinical trial.”

At Carolina, she collaborated with biomedical engineering professor Andy Kant and neurologist Nina Browner to evaluate her app with patients at the UNC Movement Disorders Center during scheduled clinic appointments. They would explore the app for 20 to 30 minutes, offering insight and often sharing excitement about the potential of this technology.

“Their enthusiasm truly inspired me,” she says.

Now, Agarwal is working to improve the app and its algorithm, imagining future uses that range from supporting nonprofits to informing new treatments. After graduation, she plans to attend medical school, keeping holistic, patient-centered care at the heart of her work.

“I want to create sustainable care plans tailored to each patient, helping them get the care they need — and want,” she says.