Research Scientist Jobs in Chicago, IL

• Lead analyses of Medicare and Medicaid Fee-for-Service claims using the CMS Virtual Research Data Center, including work with the Master Beneficiary Summary File, Inpatient, Outpatient, Carrier, SNF, Home Health, Hospice, DME, and Part D files.
• Develop, validate, and refine claims-based case definitions and ascertainment models for dementia, vision impairment, hearing loss, falls, and related conditions.
• Conduct analyses using nationally representative longitudinal cohort studies and their linkages to Medicare claims.
• First-author peer-reviewed publications under PI mentorship and co-author across the team's portfolio.
• Contribute to NIH grant applications, federal contract deliverables, foundation-supported research, and pilot grant program activities.
• Produce analytic code that is reproducible, auditable, and built to survive verification.

• PhD in economics, health services research, public policy, epidemiology, or a closely related quantitative field. Recent post-doc or assistant professor equivalent experience preferred.
• Demonstrated proficiency in SAS, R, or Python for analysis of large administrative claims and survey datasets. SAS is preferred; strong R or Python candidates will be considered. STATA and SPSS proficiency alone is not sufficient.
• Direct, hands-on experience with Medicare claims data or comparable large administrative health datasets.
• A track record of scientific writing and the ability to first-author publications under mentorship.
• Meticulous attention to detail and a strong instinct for when something is not quite right in the data or the analysis.
• Qualified applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. We regret that we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position.

Preferred qualifications

• Expertise in dementia measurement, regardless of data source.
• Working knowledge of 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), including their wave structure, imputation conventions, and Medicare linkages.
• Experience working in the NIA LINKAGE data enclave.
• Experience working in the CMS Virtual Research Data Center, including familiarity with DUA requirements and CMS cell suppression rules.
• Experience with epidemiological estimation, machine learning, Bayesian regression methods, and econometrics.
• First-author peer-reviewed publications in health services research, epidemiology, or aging.

What we offer

• Sustained research funding through NIH grants, federal contracts, and foundation-supported research.
• Direct mentorship from a PI with a long record of NIH funding and high-impact peer-reviewed publication.
• A clear path to first-author publications and to building an independent research portfolio.
• Affiliation with NORC at the University of Chicago, with access to NORC's data infrastructure, statisticians, and broader research community.
• 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.

Who will thrive here

The strongest candidates bring genuine scientific curiosity about how dementia, aging, and disability are measured and what the data do and do not tell us. They pair that curiosity with near-obsessive attention to analytic accuracy and the ambition to make a substantive contribution to their field. We work iteratively and collaboratively. We expect people to run their own work streams and own their decisions, while being open to direct feedback and willing to revise when the evidence calls for it.

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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