Get Involved: Open Student Positions on Projects

This page lists some opportunities for students at Northeastern University, although it is not exhaustive. There are other ways to get involved with the research group, but any project listed here is one for which we are definitely looking for help right now. We are also open to motivated students proposing their own project ideas. 

Not at Northeastern? We are recruiting new PhD students for the fall of 2021. Please apply by Dec 15, 2020! Read the information for prospective PhD students. 

Current Northeastern students interested in getting involved should send the following information to Prof. Intille: (1) what project, or type of project, you want to work on, (2) resume, (3) grades of all classes at Northeastern, (4) classes being taken in the current semester (or other commitments), (5) classes being taken in the upcoming semester (or other commitments), (6) hours that could be devoted to a research project, and (7) motivation for getting involved in research. Also, fill out this survey: mHealth Research Group Applicants. 
Volunteer: Design a Game for Science as a JavaScript or Android Game Programmer
We are seeking a part-time student programmer and research assistant to explore how mobile games can be used to advance behavioral science. The goal of the research project is to design, develop, and test new software and strategies that use the “crowd” to help scientists annotate wearable sensor data collected from mobile phones and body-worn wireless sensors. The team is working on developing new interfaces and mobile games that are fun to play, but that also serve a secondary purpose of improving the quality of data available to data scientists using wearable sensor data for accurate measure of everyday behavior, such as physical activity and sedentary behavior.  Solid JavaScript or Android programming experience is required. 
Volunteer: Using Wearable Computing to Support Hand Hygiene
We are working on ideas for real-time interfaces to support hand hygiene in environments where risk of disease spread is high. The goal of the research is to use wearable computing to detect risky hand hygiene behaviors, and to help people to learn real-time behavior and maintain that behavior over time. Opportunities exist to do wearable programming (real time sensing on Android devices), to collect test data, to help us collect test data from others, and/or to think about user interface design of real-time, interactive learning tools. 
Volunteer: Use Northeastern's Discovery Cluster to Process Massive Datasets on Human Behavior using Machine Learning Algorithms
We are seeking a part-time student programmer and research assistant to work on research project focused on processing massive intensive longitudinal datasets such as the influential NHANES accelerometer dataset (18,000+ people) using machine learning algorithms. Eligible students must have solid experience either in (1) AWS cloud computing, or (2) signal processing and pattern recognition algorithms, especially applied to accelerometer data. 
Volunteer: Optimize Python Code
We are seeking a part-time student programmer and research assistant who is really good at optimizing Python code. The role of this student is to make our code run as fast as possible, refactoring and documenting the code along the way. The code processes datasets from the TIME study, where we are collecting one year of phone/smartwatch data from 250+ people for a year. Because we will ultimately end up with many TBs of data, being able to run code to summarize the data becomes important. The code computes statistics and runs our machine learning activity recognition algorithms.  This could lead to a paid position for someone who demonstrates they can speed up our code. 
Volunteer: Help Build a Bicycle Simulator  
We want to build a biking simulator to be used to conduct a variety of experiments on active transportation (i.e., encouraging exercise as part of everyday life, such as commuting to and from work). We have all the parts we need to make an awesome bike simulator, including a bike, sensors, and several large displays. We need help instrumenting the bike (steering, brakes, shifters), setting up the system (including fans), doing video processing, and creating VR software using Unity or some other programming language to simulate biking in various environments. If you like hacking sensors, graphics, video, or bike physics, there is plenty for you to do! 
Volunteer: Adapt CARLA Vehicle Simulator Software for a Bicycle Simulator  
To build the bicycle simulator (see the prior project), we are considering using an impressive open-source vehicle simulation software package called CARLA (carla.org). We are looking for a programmer who wants to learn about this software, get it running, and figure out how to adapt it to our needs, including loading in OpenStreetMap map data to create roads. 
Volunteer: Help Study an Innovative Solution to Encouraging Active Transportation via Bicycling
As part of a project on a new technology to support active transportation via bicycle (i.e., getting exercise by biking to/from work), we want to learn more about current and potential active transportation cyclists. If you are interested in this project, read a bit more, and then if interested, fill out the volunteer survey. There are many aspects of this project that do not require programming for students interested in health and behavior who do not have a computing background. 
Volunteer: Real-Time Smartwatch Activity Sensing 
For a very strong Java/Android programmer only: We would like to implement real-time activity recognition algorithms on Android smartwatches using multiple wireless sensors. This is a highly technical project for someone who wants to push their ability to optimize Android code to the limit. The end result will be an impressive demonstration system that will be used in future research. 
Volunteer: Become a Cyborg and Test Innovative Software Systems
Have you always wanted to wear sensors all over your body and become a human cyborg? We need students willing to help us collect data on behavior, to be used for activity recognition algorithm testing. You will wear multiple motion sensors, a smartwatch, a heart rate sensor, a wearable camera, and other sensors as you also provide self-report data on an Android mobile phone. You will help us understand and possibly process your data. No programming experience is required, just an interest in technology and willingness to nerd out a little bit. This is a great way to get familiar with some of our research, by helping us test the systems we are developing and deploying.
Volunteer: Create "Object Usage" Sensors
We want to create "object usage" sensors for homes, using Arduino or Amazon Dash buttons or some other inexpensive off-the-shelf hardware we can hack. If you like playing around with wireless electronics, help us figure out a good option so that we can wire up a home with several hundred sensors. The data we gather would be used for activity recognition experiments.  
Volunteer: Collect Data from Participants Wearing mHealth Sensors in the Exercise Science Lab and Around Campus 
Help us collect data from participants in scientific experiments where we measure behavior in the Exercise Physiology Lab and around campus. You will help recruit participants for the research study, wire them up with sensors, observe them as they complete a research protocol (doing a variety of physical activiteis, exercises, and other behaviors), and then check and clean the data collected so it can be used in experiments. No programming experience is required, but good people skills are. 
Volunteer: Create a Year-in-the-Life Data Visualization 
We are collecting intensive longitudinal data data from 250+ people for over a year that includes sensor data and self-report data. We are looking for a student interested in information visualization who can write software to turn the data for a person into a beautiful and meaningful visualization that can be printed as a poster and given to research participants as a memento in thanks for their incredible data collection efforts. This is a great project for a data scientists with design/artistic sensibilities.   
Volunteer: Work on a Project in Mobile or Ubiquitous Computing Applied to Health that is of Personal Interest to You
Do you have an idea in personal health informatics, ubiquitous computing, mobile activity recognition, mobile health, persuasive computing, or behavioral science? We love exciting new ideas. Make a proposal!