Research Scientist - Aging and Disability Public Health Surveillance - Chicago Loop Office

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• Conduct analyses of Medicare and Medicaid claims and national survey data under the direction of senior scientists, including data management, cohort construction, descriptive analysis, and statistical modeling.
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• Build, clean, document, and quality-check analytic datasets from large administrative and survey data sources.
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• Produce tables, figures, and estimates for reports, manuscripts, public use files, and data visualization tools.
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• Run and maintain established analytic pipelines, verify outputs, and flag anomalies for investigation.
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• Co-author peer-reviewed publications and contribute to reports and federal contract deliverables, with first-author opportunities as skills develop.
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• Support grant applications, progress reports, and disclosure review processes.
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• Produce analytic code that is reproducible, auditable, and built to survive verification.
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• Master's degree in economics, health services research, public policy, epidemiology, biostatistics, data science, or a closely related quantitative field. PhD preferred but not required.
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• At least 7 years experience in positions of increasing responsibility in social science research or related field (or equivalent education) including at least 3 years of social science project management.
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• Demonstrated proficiency in SAS, R, or Python for data management and statistical analysis. SAS is preferred; strong R or Python candidates will be considered. STATA and SPSS proficiency alone is not sufficient.
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• Hands-on experience managing and analyzing large or complex datasets, such as administrative claims, electronic health records, or national surveys.
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• Clear technical writing and the ability to document methods and contribute to manuscripts and reports.
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• Meticulous attention to detail and a strong instinct for when something is not quite right in the data or the analysis.
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• Qualified applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. We regret that we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position.
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Preferred qualifications

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• PhD in a quantitative field listed above.
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• Direct experience with Medicare, Medicaid, or commercial claims data.
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• Experience with dementia measurement or aging-related health research.
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• Familiarity with nationally representative longitudinal cohort studies relevant to aging, such as the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), or the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP).
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• Experience working in the CMS Virtual Research Data Center or other secure data enclaves.
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• Experience with epidemiological estimation, machine learning, Bayesian regression methods, econometrics, or cost-effectiveness analysis.
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• Contributions to peer-reviewed publications.
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What we offer

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• Stable, sustained research funding through NIH grants, federal contracts, and foundation-supported research.
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• Direct mentorship from senior scientists with long records of NIH funding and peer-reviewed publication.
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• A defined growth path toward more independent research, including co-authorship from the start and first-author opportunities as skills develop.
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• Affiliation with NORC at the University of Chicago, with access to NORC's data infrastructure, statisticians, and broader research community.
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• The opportunity to do work that matters. The program produces some of the only national-scale surveillance estimates for dementia, vision impairment, and hearing loss, and the analyses you contribute will shape how disease burden in aging populations is measured at the national level.
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Who will thrive here

The strongest candidates bring genuine curiosity about health data and what it does and does not tell us, paired with near-obsessive attention to analytic accuracy. This role works across several projects at once, so we value people who stay organized under shifting priorities, follow direction well, ask questions early, and speak up when a number looks wrong. We work iteratively and collaboratively, and we invest in people who want to grow.

NORC at the University of Chicago is an objective, non-partisan research institution that delivers reliable data and rigorous analysis to guide critical programmatic, business, and policy decisions. Since 1941, our teams have conducted groundbreaking studies, created and applied innovative methods and tools, and advanced principles of scientific integrity and collaboration. Today, government, corporate, and nonprofit clients around the world partner with us to transform increasingly complex information into useful knowledge.

For over 80 years, NORC has evolved in many ways, moving the needle with research methods, technical applications and groundbreaking research findings. But our tradition of excellence, passion for innovation, and commitment to collegiality have remained constant components of who we are as a brand, and who each of us is as a member of the NORC team. With world-class benefits, a business casual environment, and an emphasis on continuous learning, NORC is a place where people join for the stellar research and analysis work for which we’re known, and stay for the relationships they form with their colleagues who take pride in the impact their work is making on a global scale.

NORC is an equal opportunity employer. NORC evaluates qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, sexual orientation, and other legally protected characteristics.

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