PhD in Personal Health Informatics

Career prospects across industry and academia

This program will prepare you for research, academic positions, or a career at the intersection of health, information technology, and data science. Career prospects include:

• Tenure-track faculty 
• Postdoctoral research scientist
• Health informatics consultant
• Data scientist
• Public health analyst

Research opportunities with world-class faculty

Northeastern is a world-class, R1 research institution, meaning you’ll have opportunities to collaborate with leading thinkers in state-of-the-art facilities as you produce and defend original, relevant research contributions.

Internships: Collaborate with industry leaders

You’ll gain industry exposure, build important connections, and form new perspectives on the impact of your work through internship opportunities at forward-thinking companies like:

• Samsung Digital Health
• US Veterans Administration Healthcare
• Philips Healthcare
• Google
• LinkedIn
• Microsoft Research

Graduate assistantships and fellowships

Northeastern University and Khoury College of Computer Sciences offer a number ways to help finance your PhD education, including funding packages and fellowships. Financial support varies based on program and research funding availability.

Learning outcomes

Students graduating with a PhD in Personal Health Informatics will:

• Apply leading theories of health behavior change and leverage them in the design of automated patient- and consumer-facing health interventions.
• Design PHI interventions for a range of populations using state-of-the-art technologies.
• Create rigorous evaluation studies for PHI interventions that meet medical research standards.
• Produce and defend original PHI research.
• Learn to articulate research results orally and in writing.