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In this episode of The Innovator’s Playbook, Seth Narayanan sits down with Kendra Batchelder, Founder and CEO of Medara, a healthcare AI startup using multimodal AI to predict future disease risk through medical imaging and clinical data. With a PhD background in medical imaging, mathematics, and signal processing, Kendra shares her journey from academic research to building technology designed for real-world clinical impact.
The conversation explores how AI can help shift healthcare from reactive diagnosis toward predictive and preventive care, the challenges of bringing research innovations into hospitals, and what it takes to build trust around AI in healthcare.
“I wanted to see these technologies… being used by clinicians or hospital systems.”
Kendra shares how personal experiences with cancer and her work in medical imaging changed her perspective on research. While she originally planned to remain in academia, she realized that true impact came from moving breakthrough technologies beyond research labs and into practical healthcare environments.
Key insight: Innovation creates the most value when research can successfully reach the people it was designed to help.
“All of these different stakeholders really speak a different language.”
Healthcare innovation requires alignment between researchers, clinicians, regulators, reimbursement teams, healthcare organizations, and patients. Kendra explains that one of the biggest challenges in healthcare AI is not only developing the technology, but helping different groups understand its value and purpose.
Key insight: The future of healthcare AI depends on connecting technical innovation with clinical reality.
“How do we start to become predictive?”
Kendra explains how Medara is focused on using multimodal AI to analyze medical imaging and clinical data to identify disease risk earlier. Traditional healthcare often detects diseases after they become visible, but AI creates opportunities to identify subtle patterns before disease progresses.
Key insight: AI’s greatest healthcare impact may come from predicting risk before symptoms appear.
“You have to show the evidence that it’s producing something that is net positive for society.”
Kendra discusses why transparency, validation, and evidence are essential for AI adoption in healthcare. She explains that trust comes from involving patients, clinicians, and healthcare stakeholders early in the development process.
Key insight: Healthcare AI adoption depends as much on trust as it does on technology.
“You can’t be the expert at everything.”
Moving from academia into entrepreneurship required Kendra to expand beyond technical expertise and embrace leadership, collaboration, and team building. She explains how founders need to surround themselves with experts across areas such as regulatory, quality, finance, and product development.
Key insight: Great founders build teams that complement their strengths rather than trying to master every function themselves.
Kendra Batchelder, PhD, is the Founder and CEO of Medara, a healthcare AI company focused on using multimodal AI to predict disease risk through medical imaging and clinical data. With a background in mathematics, signal processing, and medical imaging research, Kendra specializes in translating advanced AI research into real-world healthcare solutions. Her work focuses on improving early disease detection, personalized screening, and preventive care. Through her experience as a researcher, entrepreneur, and healthcare innovator, Kendra is helping bridge the gap between deep technology and clinical impact.