Alex Gimmi already plans to continue his education once he completes his computer science degree in 2016. So the Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Science (CCIS) undergraduate jumped at the opportunity to spend a six-month co-op as a member of Professor Stephen Intille’s research group.

“I’ve always wanted to go to graduate school, and having undergraduate research experience is a good start,” says Gimmi, who is also pursuing academic minors in mathematics and French. “I hadn’t done academic research before.”

Intille, an associate professor in both CCIS and Bouvé College of Health Sciences, conducts research related to mobile health technologies. Working in conjunction with Duke University Medical Center, Intille was developing and testing a sensor-enabled mobile phone application to help young adults lose weight. He needed a co-op student who could take on the responsibility of keeping the CITY (Cell Phone Intervention for You) clinical research study’s software and server running.

“Alex expressed interest in mobile development and struck me as someone who could pick up what he needed to learn,” says Intille, who served as Gimmi’s direct supervisor, meeting with him at least once a week. “Even though Alex was a co-op student, I had him come up with his own ideas, which is what you try to get graduate students to do.”

Through his research co-op, Gimmi was able to achieve one of his personal goals: learning how to program for Android devices. In addition to helping to maintain the CITY study’s computing infrastructure, he worked on a prompting system for the Android phone that was designed to keep participants engaged and motivated.

“The prompting was simple to set up but hard to implement,” says Gimmi, explaining that the system tailored health-related questions to participants, based on their previous responses. “Finishing it was the most satisfying aspect of the co-op. I really wanted to get it done and even stayed overnight to finish. When I get in a flow, I keep going.”

Gimmi also had the unexpected opportunity to work with Google Glass, which was new at the time of his co-op in 2013. Intille had received a grant to investigate how Google Glass might help with health behavior interventions, and Gimmi became the first person in the professor’s research group to explore the technology’s capabilities. Gimmi also traveled to Switzerland as Intille’s representative at a meeting of the Google grant recipients.

“It was my job to scout out how people were programming for Google Glass and relay what I learned,” Gimmi says. “It was really exciting to go, and I came back with a lot of information.”

Intille, who now uses Google Glass in the Personal Health Interface Design and Development course he teaches, says of Gimmi’s involvement with the technology, “He learned how to push the boundaries of something new. He took us from zero to a point where we could build small applications and think about how we could use Google Glass for research.”

Gimmi’s co-op experience also provided other benefits. Intille notes that in addition to gaining exposure to health technology and computer science research, Gimmi learned about working with research collaborators and the challenges of running software for extended periods. And Gimmi says, “The co-op helped me solidify my coding skills and develop good programming practices.”

Though he has since gone on to Charles River Development, a financial software company, for his final co-op, Gimmi’s interest in academic research remains strong. He hopes to return to Intille’s research lab on a part-time basis while taking classes this semester and is thinking about researching green technology as a graduate student.

“Continuing to be involved in research will help Alex figure out his interests in graduate school,” Intille says. “I think it would be great if more undergraduates did research co-ops as well as industry co-ops so they know what it will be like if they decide to go on for a PhD.”