What are these people doing at Apple (AAPL)?

Working on the so-called iWatch, according to 9to5Mac‘s Mark Gurman. Gurman on Friday published profiles of the team Apple has assembled to build the widely anticipated but still unannounced product, including nearly a dozen recent hires.

Who Apple hired and what it hired them for may be the best clue we’ll get to what Apple has up its sleeve.

Below: Brief summaries of Gurman’s roster in the order he presents them.

• Kevin Lynch: Former chief technology officer at Adobe. Joined Apple last March. Now manages a large in-house team of former iPod and iOS developers.
• Jay Blahnik:  Fitness expert. From Nike. Worked on the FuelBand; known in the field as a trainer and motivational speaker.
• Roy Raymann: Scientist. From Phillips. Expert in non-pharmaceutical methods for improving the quality of sleep; developed miniature sensors for monitoring sleep.
• Paul Deneve: Former CEO, Yves Saint Laurent. Worked at Apple for several years before leading one the most valuable brands in fashion.
• Angela Ahrendts: Former CEO, Burberry. Credited with Burberry’s tech-heavy turnaround. Tapped to head Apple retail, both brick-and-mortar and online.
• Ben Shaffer: Designer. He was the director of Nike’s “Innovation Kitchen,” the R&D lab that produced the FuelBand and the Flyknit shoe.
• Ueyn Block: Was director of engineering at C8 MediSensor, which developed a non-invasive way to glucose levels and other vital signs.
• Nancy Dougherty: Hardware engineer. At Proteus Digital Health she worked on smart patches and ingestible, Bluetooth-connected smart pills. Most recently, she worked as a hardware lead for Sano Intelligence, whose tagline reads “the API for the bloodstream.”
• Todd Whitehurst: Hardware development. As Senseonics’s VP of hardware engineering, he  ran the engineering team for a wireless, smartphone-connected body sensor for monitoring glucose levels in real time.
• Michael O’Reilly: Former chief medical officer for Masimo, which markets a wireless pulse oximeter for the iPhone.
• Ravi Narashamian: Expert in biosensors and wireless communications. At Vital Connect he focused  on sensors for measuring respiration and activity levels with wearable devices.

LINK: From fashion to fitness: the experts behind Apple’s wearable future