Research Assistant, Electrical & Software Engineering

Description

Electrical & Software Engineering in the Schulich School of Engineering invites applications for a Research Assistant. This Fixed Term Recurring Part-time position is for approximately 4 months (based on length of grant funding), with the possibility of extension.

The SENSE project is a multi-year research program at the University of Calgary investigating the use of consumer-grade wearable devices to detect occupational stress in nursing staff. The project combines biosignal acquisition from wearables such as Apple and Garmin Smartwatches, machine learning models for stress classification, and field deployment with healthcare partners. The work has implications for nurse well-being, retention, and patient safety in Canadian acute care settings.

The successful candidate will report to the principal investigator and work directly with graduate students and clinical collaborators. The role offers an opportunity to contribute to peer-reviewed publications and to develop expertise in digital health, wearable signal processing, and clinical research operations.

• Configure, distribute, and recover study devices including Apple Watch units, Polar H10 chest straps, and paired iPhones.
• Train participants on device wear, charging routines, and study app use.
• Troubleshoot device pairing, syncing, and data upload issues during the study period.
• Maintain an inventory of study hardware and consumables.
• Export biosignal data from Health Kit, the Garmin Connect SDK, and the study backend.
• Run preprocessing pipelines for heart rate, beat-to-beat interval, and accelerometer data.
• Perform quality checks on per-burst RMSSD and related time-domain heart rate variability features.
• Flag and document data anomalies, missing windows, and device-level inconsistencies.
• Prepare clean datasets and documentation for downstream modeling by graduate student collaborators.
• Maintain study documentation including standard operating procedures, version-controlled data dictionaries, and recruitment logs.
• Support preparation of ethics renewals, amendments, and progress reports.
• Contribute to manuscripts, posters, and presentations as appropriate.

• Completed undergraduate degree in nursing, kinesiology, biomedical engineering, computer science, health sciences, psychology, or a closely related field.
• Candidates currently enrolled in a graduate program in a related discipline will also be considered.
• Demonstrated experience handling research participants, including consent and adherence tracking.
• Working knowledge of Python language for data handling.
• Familiarity with spreadsheet tools and version control such as Git.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Ability to work independently, manage time across multiple tasks, and meet deadlines in a research environment.
• Prior experience with wearable devices used in research, such as Apple Watch, Garmin, Polar, or Empatica.
• Familiarity with Apple Health Kit data structures, Bluetooth Low Energy heart rate services, or chest strap data export formats.
• Exposure to heart rate variability analysis, biosignal preprocessing, or physiological data quality control.
• Coursework or work experience in clinical research, healthcare settings, or human subjects research ethics.
• Experience with Linux command line, Jupyter notebooks, or Pandas.

Final date to receive applications:
June 09, 2026

This position is part of the AUPE bargaining unit, and falls under the Technical Job Family, Phase 1.

As an equitable and inclusive employer, the University of Calgary recognizes that a diverse staff/faculty benefits and enriches the work, learning and research experiences of the entire campus and greater community. We are committed to removing barriers that have historically been encountered by some people in our society. We strive to recruit individuals who will further enhance our diversity and will support their academic and professional success while they are here.

In particular, we encourage members of the designated groups (women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, members of visible/racialized minorities, and diverse sexual orientation and gender identities) to apply. To ensure a fair and equitable assessment, we offer accommodation at any stage during the recruitment process to applicants with disabilities. Questions regarding diversity EDI at UCalgary can be sent to the Office of Institutional Commitments () and requests for accommodations can be sent to People & Culture ().

We encourage all qualified applicants to apply, however preference will be given to Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada.