Open Position: Sponsored Research Staff
(Postdoctoral Associate or Sponsored Research Staff)

MIT House_n Research Group

Job Description:

This is a new position. Seeking a Postdoctoral Associate or Sponsored Research Staff member (Ph.D. preferred) to join a multi-disciplinary research group that develops and evaluates novel mobile computing technologies for measuring behavior and helping people stay healthy as they age. This position is funded by a new four-year NIH grant to develop a hardware and software system that will enable medical researchers to affordably measure physical activity type and intensity and its location in very large populations of adults using ordinary mobile phones. 
Responsibilities will include (1) leading participatory design sessions used to design novel mobile phone technologies, (2) summarizing results of design sessions and creating and revising design specifications for a mobile-phone-based experience sampling program, (3) development and testing of software for Windows Mobile and Nokia phones writing C#, Java, and Python code, (4) development and testing of database-backed server-side code to collect, manage, and present information collected from the phone software, (5) supervision of testing of the software with the participatory design groups, (7) interaction with other team members at MIT designing sensor technologies to be used by the software, (8) active participation writing research papers on the design and use of the technology for healthcare, (9) fostering a community of developers interested in extending the open-source technology, and (10) interaction with other researchers working on developing technologies for the NIH’s Exposure Biology Program. The technology developed as part of this work may ultimately be incorporated into a U.S. population-based research project to assess the health impact of genes and a person’s activities and environment.

The work will be a collaboration between MIT and Stanford Medical School.

For additional information, read the project abstract and a project abstract for a related complimentary project that will be starting at the same time.

Minimum Qualifications:

A Ph.D. in Computer Science or Human-Computer Interaction (or closely related subject) is preferred.  Candidates without a Ph.D. but extensive experience developing software for mobile phones and working in a research environment may be considered. Required: expertise in mobile phone programming and user interface development for mobile devices, experience developing functional end-user software applications on mobile devices, experience developing SQL database-backed applications, experience running participatory design sessions and working with research participants to guide software design, 3+ years working in a research environment, and proven scientific publication experience. Experience working in physical activity assessment and/or health technology an asset. Candidate should possess excellent communication skills and the ability to interact professionally with faculty and researchers in engineering and medicine.

To Apply:

Please forward a cover letter, a CV (including contact information for three references), and two recent publications to Dr. Stephen Intille via email (Intille@mit.edu).  Applications will be reviewed as received, with negotiable start date (ideally this fall). For more details on the project or position, contact Dr. Intille via email or at 617-452-2346.