Pro-Tem Data Scientist for the Ballmer Wellness Project

Department: The Ballmer Institute for Children's Behavioral Health
Rank: Research Scientist, Senior Research Scientist 1, Senior Research Scientist II
Annual Basis: 12 Month

Review of Applications Begins

August 19, 2024; position open until filled

Special Instructions to Applicants

To ensure consideration, complete applications must include the following along with the online application:
• A cover letter highlighting how your knowledge, skills, and experience quality you for the requirements, competencies, and if applicable, preferred qualifications outlined in the job announcement.
• A CV or resume of your professional work experience, education, and applicable certifications.

The online application includes the name and contact information of at least three professional references. The candidate will be notified prior to references being contacted.

Department Summary

​​The Ballmer Institute for Children's Behavioral Health at the University of Oregon Portland establishes a new national model for behavioral healthcare for children and families by creating the nation’s first undergraduate program in child behavioral health. The institute prioritizes the needs of youth who have been historically or persistently underserved and seeks to make real system change by creating a new mental health profession that addresses existing barriers and gaps in mental health services, delivering support in schools and the community, training existing youth-serving professionals, developing new approaches to support child behavioral health and transforming the Pacific Northwest into a national model of thought and action. Launched in March 2022, this groundbreaking institute was made possible by an extraordinary gift from Connie and Steve Ballmer, co-founders of Ballmer Group Philanthropy.

​The Ballmer Wellness Project (BWP) is an externally funded project that aims to enhance the capacity of Oregon K12 schools by providing universal and targeted mental health screening programs. The goals of the BWP are to: Identify students at elevated risk for mental health problems; deliver evidence-based preventive interventions to mitigate identified risks; and disseminate promising practices to Oregon schools seeking to implement universal and/or targeted mental health screening and prevention programs. ​

Position Summary

​​The Pro-Tem Data Scientist for the Ballmer Wellness Project is responsible for guiding data collection, cleaning, processing, evaluation, analysis, visualization, and dashboard creation projects for the Ballmer Wellness Project under the direction of the Director of Program Evaluation, Dr. Prerna Martin. The Data Scientist will develop systems for securely acquiring confidential data in diverse environments including schools and healthcare settings and use analytic software programs to independently convert, merge, and assemble large-scale administrative data. They will establish, maintain, and upkeep an ETL (extract, transform, load) data process of confidential data hosted at the Ballmer Institute. The Data Scientist will perform statistical analysis using analytic software programs, and when appropriate, serve as data expert to provide consultation for and participate in discussions regarding study design and methodology. Additionally, the Data Scientist will create results summaries, visualizations, dashboards, and reports using open source and/or business intelligence tools. They will also summarize and prepare research results for reports and publications.

​​This position is a twelve–month position in the Research Scientist classification series.

Minimum Requirements

​​To be considered for the rank of Research Scientist:
• ​Bachelor’s degree in data science, biostatistics, computer science, econometrics, statistics, or social science/policy with significant coursework in statistics and programming.
• ​Three years of experience in applied research in data science, data analysis, biostatistics, or similar role.

​To be considered for the rank of Senior Research Scientist I:
• Meet the requirements for Research Scientist and have at least 6 years of relevant experience post degree in a research environment, particularly with youth behavioral health data.

To be considered for the rank of Senior Research Scientist II:
• Meet the requirements for Senior Research Scientist I and have at least 12 years of relevant experience post degree in a research environment, particularly with youth behavioral health data.

Professional Competencies

• ​Proficiency with R, Python, VBA, SQL/PostgreSQL, STATA, SAS and/or other appropriate program languages 
• ​Proficiency with