Senior Researcher Jobs in Maryland

Company Overview

Index Analytics, LLC, is a rapidly growing, Baltimore-based small business providing health-related consulting services to the federal government. At the center of our culture is a commitment to a dynamic, employee-friendly workplace, a supportive and collegial team environment, and meaningful career-development and educational opportunities.

Position Overview

Index Analytics is seeking a Senior Researcher to support government clients through policy research, advanced analytics, stakeholder engagement, and technical assistance. The Senior Researcher will bring experience with Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Eligibility and Enrollment Performance Indicators and will develop or apply working knowledge of HR1, Community Engagement, and the Working Family Tax Credit (WFTC). This role serves as a primary communications and technical-assistance resource, translating complex policy and data requirements into clear guidance for clients, states, partners, and other stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead research and analysis related to Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, enrollment, retention, and access, with particular emphasis on Eligibility and Enrollment Performance Indicators.
• Interpret quantitative and qualitative data from eligibility and enrollment systems, T-MSIS Analytics File (TAF), claims, program oversight metrics, scorecards, performance reports, and other relevant sources to identify trends, gaps, and opportunities for improvement.
• Develop and maintain subject-matter expertise in HR1, Community Engagement, and WFTC policy, operational, reporting, and implementation requirements; candidates with adjacent experience and a demonstrated willingness to learn will be considered.
• Serve as the central point of contact for communications concerning HR1, Community Engagement, and WFTC, ensuring messages are timely, accurate, consistent, and appropriate for varied audiences.
• Plan, facilitate, and document technical-assistance calls with clients, states, partners, and other stakeholders; answer questions, explain requirements, resolve issues, identify follow-up needs, and track items through closure.
• Develop technical-assistance materials, frequently asked questions, presentations, talking points, training content, issue logs, guidance documents, reports, and draft manuscripts.
• Translate complex legislation, policy, program guidance, analytical findings, and technical requirements into clear, actionable information for policy, program, technical, and executive audiences.
• Research best practices and emerging requirements, assess operational implications, and develop recommendations that strengthen program administration, compliance, oversight, and beneficiary outcomes.
• Define analytical and research requirements with internal and external clients and deliver high-quality ad hoc analyses, data visualizations, and reports grounded in human-centered design and user-experience best practices.
• Apply statistical analysis, exploratory analysis, predictive modeling, data mining, and qualitative research methods to support evidence-based decisions and feature or solution development.
• Collaborate in an agile environment with researchers, data analysts, data scientists, policy subject-matter experts, designers, developers, and client teams.
• Apply Scrum and Kanban methodologies and use Jira to plan and track work, manage backlogs and workflows, monitor delivery progress, and report performance metrics.
• Manage user reporting access, including coordinating access requests, maintaining appropriate permissions, troubleshooting access issues, and supporting users.
• Manage competing priorities, communications calendars, meeting preparation, action items, and deliverable schedules while maintaining rigorous quality control.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in public health, public policy, health services research, statistics, data science, economics, social science, or a related field, with six (6) or more years of relevant experience. An MPH or other relevant advanced degree is preferred.
• Demonstrated experience analyzing Medicaid or CHIP eligibility and enrollment data, including Eligibility and Enrollment Performance Indicators.
• Experience with HR1, Community Engagement, and WFTC is preferred; candidates must otherwise demonstrate the ability and willingness to rapidly learn these subject areas and communicate them accurately.
• Strong facilitation and client-service skills, including experience leading technical-assistance calls, responding to stakeholder questions, explaining complex requirements, and coordinating follow-up.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to manage high-volume communications and tailor information for technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Experience applying statistical methods such as distributions, hypothesis testing, regression, exploratory analysis, or predictive modeling to complex program or healthcare data.
• Proficiency in one or more analytical languages or platforms, such as Python, R, SQL, or PySpark. Experience with visualization tools such as Tableau, Power BI, or Amazon QuickSight is a plus.
• Experience with unstructured data, text analytics, natural language processing, large language models, knowledge graphs, ontologies, or taxonomies is a plus.
• Experience planning and conducting user-interface (UI) testing, documenting defects and usability findings, validating fixes, and communicating results to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Experience with GitHub and continuous integration/continuous delivery tools such as Jenkins is a plus.
• Ability to produce polished presentations, reports, guidance, training materials, and other technical deliverables under tight deadlines.
• Experience using Databricks Dashboards to review, investigate, document, and communicate data-quality issues and findings to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Experience managing state communications, stakeholder contacts, follow-up activities, and user access to State data and Information reporting.
• Prior experience supporting the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services or another government agency is preferred.
• U.S. citizenship or other authorization to work in the United States, physical residency in the United States for at least three of the past five years, and the ability to obtain a federal client badge and pass a Public Trust investigation.

Disclaimer

Index Analytics provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.