May 3, 2012
Stephen Intille, PhD
Associate Professor in the College of Computer and Information Science and Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University
About the Presentation: I will present an overview of work by my research group exploring the development and evaluation of sensor-driven mobile health technologies for measuring and motivating health-related behavior. We are creating prototype technologies that use context-aware sensing to empower people with information by presenting it in timely, tailored ways via home and mobile computing devices. I will outline our general approach showing examples of technologies developed in pilot projects, with a special focus on an effort to develop a new open-source tool for measuring physical activity type, duration, intensity, and location on common mobile phones for population scale health studies. This activity measurement system, and others we are working on using common mobile phones, provide new ways to create what are known as persuasive technologies using positive reinforcement and tailored, just-in-time messaging.
About the Presenter: Stephen Intille, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the College of Computer and Information Science and Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University. His research focuses on the development of novel healthcare technologies that incorporate ideas from ubiquitous computing, user-interface design, pattern recognition, behavioral science, and preventive medicine. Areas of special interest include technologies for measuring and motivating health-related behaviors, technologies that support healthy aging and well-being in the home setting, and mobile technologies that permit longitudinal measurement of health behaviors for research, especially the type, duration, intensity, and location of physical activity. After ten years as Technology Director of the House_n Research Consortium at MIT, in 2010 he joined Northeastern University to help establish a new transdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Personal Health Informatics.