Alex van Kraaij is 29 and works at imec at OnePlanet Research Center as a biomedical engineer. He began his career at imec in 2019, with a graduate internship within imec at Holst Centre. “At the time, I was looking for the mix between business, research and making an impact. I found that mix one hundred percent at imec. Both my internship then and my current work now was and is extremely varied.”

More than just publishing papers

Alex studied medical biology at Radboud University in Nijmegen. While working on his master’s, he completed two internships. His first was at the Donders research institute. “The subjects of behavior, cognition and stress interested me immensely. I just found that I wanted to do more than work on a paper, publish it and move on to the next publication. For my second internship, I was looking for the combination of research and business.” At the time, Alex was also working as a junior data analyst at Danone Nutricia. “The way of working there suited me well.” Through his then internship supervisor from Radboud University, Richard van Wezel, now a management team member at OnePlanet, Alex ended up at imec. During the first meeting with his internship supervisors at imec at Holst Centre, in Eindhoven, there was an immediate click.

Data and chronic stress

“I had a lot of experience of doing analysis, and they were looking for a student who wanted to analyze. That was the first match. When I told them I was looking for the combination of research and making an impact in everyday life, they said that that’s exactly what imec is all about.”

Alex carried out research at imec at Holst Centre into what physiological data can say about chronic stress. He did this using data from the so-called SWEET study (Stress in the Work EnvironmEnT), in which a dataset on physiology and their mood was obtained from a thousand office workers. “My task was twofold. On the one hand, I analyzed the data; on the other, I explored what we could do with those analyses in practice. For that, I interviewed psychiatrists and psychologists about the possibility of using physiological data obtained from wearables in mental health care.”

Variety

“Before that, I hadn’t expected the link between research and impact in everyday life to be so clear. That was a very valuable addition to my internship. In addition, what made my internship really unique was the variety of the work. Every internship week looked different. One day was an analysis day, another consisted of conducting interviews, and yet another day I’d work on a patent application, or co-write a paper.”

During his internship, OnePlanet Research Centre was set up, a collaboration between imec, Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Radboudumc and Radboud University. One of his internship supervisors transferred from imec at Holst Centre to OnePlanet. She invited him to come work at OnePlanet as well. “Secretly, I was already hoping for a job at imec. They even gave me a choice between data scientist or R&D engineer. Even though I really love doing analysis, I chose R&D engineer – a job with even more variety.”

An integrated solution

Today, at OnePlanet, Alex is working on several projects. For example, he is project leader of the Smart Bathroom and participates in Mocia, a Dutch Resource Council (NWO)-funded Dutch consortium focused on promoting healthy lifestyles in older people at risk of dementia. Within this consortium, Alex, together with researchers from the University of Twente, is evaluating which digital technologies can be used for these elderly people. “What I’ve noticed, actually ever since my internship, is that within imec you get a lot of responsibility. You can work very independently and are given the freedom, within certain limits of course, to put your own spin on a project. At imec, you are listened to.”

“My great dream is to create an integrated solution that can really help people with their mental health, by providing data-driven advice and support on their lifestyle. That means not having to use ten different apps for that and figure out everything for yourself, as is often the case now. I like the idea of working with my colleagues within imec to incorporate that all into a single solution.”