Director Statistical Programming Jobs in Illinois

Provide statistical expertise that leads to important insights for a portfolio of NORC projects, business development opportunities, and corporate strategic initiatives. Apply advanced statistical methods and statistical and operational processes. Assist in managing both the activities and the quality of work products of other staff. Contribute to project/task technical, staffing, and budget planning and management with direction; develop a publication record and participate in professional organizations. Contribute to corporate or departmental initiatives; may contribute to business development opportunities. Write and implement computer programs to extract and manipulate data, make statistical calculations necessary for selecting samples, and perform other statistical analyses. Consult with/provide specifications to the task leader/project director and IT project manager for the construction of data files from which these samples are drawn and from which variances, statistical weights, and standard errors are calculated. Contribute substantially to and/or review the sample weighting, variance estimation, and analysis sections of sample design reports, final technical reports, and other documentary deliverables. Present results at professional meetings and to clients. May carry out substantive analysis on projects with analytical deliverables under limited supervision. Effectively mentor more junior staff on technical and career development topics. Contribute to proposal and business development activities. Interact with clients on a moderate to frequent basis to clarify their needs, report on progress, resolve problems, allay concerns, and provide information and recommendations. Develop and maintain good cross-departmental and intra-departmental working relationships. May conduct independent research in areas of subject matter expertise. Hybrid work permissible.

Requires a Master's degree or foreign equivalent in Statistics, Mathematics, Computational Analysis, or a related field, and Three years (36 months) of work experience in the job offered or in a statistical analysis position. 

Also requires three (3) years of experience in each of the following: 1) Drawing survey samples and calculating weights, nonresponse rates, and standard error estimates for administering public opinion surveys and informing public sector decision making; 2) Writing and implementing computer programs in Python, R, and SAS to extract and manipulate data, make statistical calculations necessary for selecting samples, and link large and complex administrative datasets, and carry out machine learning modeling and natural language processing; 3) Producing analytic deliverables with R (.R, .Rmd) and Python scripts (.py, .ipynb), preparing written reports for federal, state, and local government clients, and performing statistical analyses contributing to the implementation and evaluation of public policy across domains including crime, public health, healthcare, STEM education, transportation, and official statistics; 4)  Preparing and presenting code data visualizations (including .R and .js) and static and interactive data visualizations (including.png and .html) using R, Tableau, and JavaScript for tracking policy-relevant indicators and outcomes; 5) Liaising with sub-contractors and government clients to provide recommendations for statistical and machine learning analyses using Large Language Models, interpreting and utilizing findings from such methods; and 6) Leveraging AI resources including Azure AI Foundry, Azure Machine Learning Studio, AWS Bedrock, and AWS Sagemaker on a cloud computing platform to develop methodological tools and solutions for public sector clients and survey research, including prompt engineering and assessing Large Language Models for bias.

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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