Program Area Director, NORC Health Data Lab
NORC at the University of ChicagoAbout the role
NORC seeks a Director of the NORC Health Data Lab (HDL), to provide leadership for the organization’s use of health care administrative data, large-scale linked data assets, and advanced analysis. The Director will set strategic vision and analytic standards, and establish practices that support high-quality, compliant, and innovative analytic work across NORC’s health care evaluation and implementation portfolio. While housed in the Health Care Evaluation research department, the Director will play a role in projects involving use of health care administrative data across the organization, collaborating closely with departments responsible for program implementation and with statisticians and methodologists from NORC’s Research Science division.
The Program Area Director will lead the Health Data Lab to support analytic excellence, workforce development and business development for projects using Medicare, Medicaid, commercial claims, encounter data, and other administrative data for health projects.
This role offers the opportunity to shape how one of the nation’s leading research organizations uses health care data to support high-impact federal programs. This includes leading innovation projects, mentoring staff, and positioning NORC for continued leadership in data-intensive evaluation and implementation work.
Work Location
This is a hybrid role based in either our Chicago Loop or Washington, DC office, with a minimum of six days per month in the office. Remote work status may be considered for outstanding candidates.
Qualified applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. We regret that we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position.
NORC’s Health Care Evaluation Research (HCE) department conducts large-scale evaluations, advanced analytics, and implementation support for Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal and state health programs. HCE is a national leader in evaluating CMS Innovation Center models, state Medicaid demonstrations, and payment and delivery system reforms. The department integrates health economics, policy analysis, advanced quantitative analytics, and mixed methods to support program design, ongoing monitoring, and formal evaluation for high-impact public-sector clients.
- Provide strategic leadership to guide NORC’s approach to using health care administrative data, including claims, enrollment, encounter, provider, and linked datasets used in federal and state health programs.
- Lead the NORC Health Data Lab as an internal center of excellence supporting analytic standards, best practices, workforce development, and proposal and business development enablement.
- Establish and maintain standards for health care data ingestion, processing, documentation, quality assurance, reproducibility, and analytic workflows across multiple projects.
- Provide senior technical leadership to CMS implementation and evaluation projects, including design and oversight of data management approaches, feasibility assessments, and alignment with platform-specific constraints.
- Lead and mentor teams responsible for health care administrative data management and analytics on large, multi-year federal contracts.
- Oversee development and maintenance of shared analytic resources, including code libraries, analytic templates, reference databases, data dictionaries, and internal technical guidance.
- Collaborate with IT, security, and data governance partners to ensure compliant and efficient use of restricted data environments and secure cloud-based analytic platforms.
- Collaborate with experts across NORC to co-design and oversee training programs, guidance materials, and communities of practice to support analysts, data scientists, and researchers working with health care administrative data.
- Play a senior role in business development, including capture strategy, proposal design, technical narratives, staffing models, and participation in data calls and client discussions.
- Partner with Communications and Business Development teams to strengthen NORC’s external positioning related to health care data, analytics, and innovation.
- Serve as an advisor to organizational leadership on emerging data, cloud, and AI-enabled capabilities as they relate to health data while maintaining appropriate governance and compliance.
- Doctorate or Master’s degree in health services research, economics, public policy, or a related field required.
- At least 12 years of progressive experience working with health care administrative data, including senior technical or program leadership responsibility.
- Demonstrated experience leading data management and analytic infrastructure for CMS or
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