Research Data Director Jobs in Reston, VA (NOW HIRING)

Unissant, Inc. delivers innovative capabilities to the agencies that keep our nation healthy and safe. We apply our domain expertise, data acumen, and technology know-how to achieve breakthrough results for our clients. Working collaboratively, we advance missions and careers through a focus on honesty, integrity, and dependability. We continuously look for talent, excited to join that effort. To learn more about our exciting organization, please visit us at .

We are seeking a Senior Data Scientist to join our team in Washington, DC, in support of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Law Enforcement Systems and Analysis (LESA) program within the Statistical Tracking Unit (STU).

The STU is the official statistical reporting unit for ICE, responsible for ensuring accountability, consistency, and efficiency in the statistical reporting of ICE operations. STU supports analysis of key performance metrics, provides ad hoc analysis and reporting for congressional inquiries, interagency requests, litigation, and FOIA, and assesses and improves reporting tools including the ICE Integrated Decision Support System (IIDS) and ENFORCE. The ideal candidate is a data scientist with strong predictive modeling, feature engineering, and model evaluation skills, with particular ability to support official reporting workflows, data quality monitoring, and business requirements development in a high-accountability government environment. In addition, the ideal candidate brings substantial experience in operations research (OR) methods and federal environments and is able to apply OR techniques to enforcement and immigration lifecycle problems.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Develop and implement predictive modeling and machine learning solutions to support STU statistical reporting, data quality monitoring, and enforcement analysis within the immigration lifecycle.
• Perform feature engineering: identifying, constructing, and selecting relevant variables from structured and unstructured data in ICE systems of record (ENFORCE, IIDS, and related databases) to optimize model and report performance.
• Design and execute comprehensive model evaluation and validation frameworks including cross-validation, A/B testing, precision/recall analysis, and population/filter validation per STU standard operating procedures.
• Provide data quality monitoring: analyze data to identify patterns, data quality issues, and anomalies; document findings and provide recommendations to federal staff in writing.
• Complete a "Weekly Population Report Validation" process: validate all standard populations and filters in systems of record by the first business day of each week; communicate data quality issues to federal staff by 3:00 PM EST on the first business day of each week.
• Gather business requirements, design, and execute recurring and ad-hoc reports from databases of record at prescribed frequencies for federal staff review; conduct peer reviews of deliverables daily or as requested.
• Gather business requirements and draft reporting methodologies; participate in the testing and validation of business rule implementations; provide final training documentation as directed by the STU Unit Chief.
• Identify data resources, research historical data, integrate structured and unstructured data from disparate sources, and incorporate new data from systems as required.
• Support EOFY (End of Fiscal Year) Management: conduct population audits, validate fiscal year reports, identify data quality issues, and draft updated methodologies for new fiscal year reporting.
• Co-lead STU working groups (including the STU Database Working Group); identify gaps for LESA business tool development; draft technical requirements for ITM; provide UAT and validation of implementations.
• Evaluate and provide recommendations for current and emerging business tools: SQL, AI, Tableau, GIS, Python, QLIK, Databricks; support FOIA and litigation data pulls from ERO systems.
• Create data visualizations and storytelling artifacts using standard and non-standard datasets; present data in organized formats for STU reporting and congressional/interagency deliverables.
• Apply operations research methods (such as optimization, simulation, queuing theory, and decision analysis) to enforcement, detention, and immigration lifecycle questions, designing models that can be used in official reporting and policy analysis.
• Collaborate with federal stakeholders to translate enforcement and operations questions into OR-driven analytical frameworks and documented methodologies that align with LESA and STU standards.

Work Experience and Job Skills:

• 10+ years of experience in data science, applied machine learning, statistical analysis, operations research, or quantitative reporting, preferably in a federal law enforcement, compliance, or statistical reporting environment.
• Demonstrated experience in predictive modeling and ML techniques: supervised learning (classification, regression), unsupervised learning (clustering), and ensemble methods.
• Strong feature engineering skills across structured, categorical, and time-series data common to government enforcement and immigration datasets.
• Experience designing and implementing model/report validation frameworks and population audits; familiarity with ICE systems (ENFORCE, IIDS, OBIEE/OAS) is a strong plus.
• Ability to work in a high-accountability reporting environment, meeting strict delivery deadlines with accurate, error-free deliverables consistent with STU SOPs.
• Experience supporting FOIA, litigation, or congressional reporting requests preferred.
• Strong SQL skills for querying government databases; Python and/or R programming; experience with Databricks, Oracle OBIEE/OAS, or UiPath is a plus.
• Proficiency with data visualization tools: Python (matplotlib, seaborn, Plotly), Tableau, Qlik, Power BI, GIS/ArcGIS.
• Demonstrated, hands-on experience in operations research: building and evaluating optimization models, simulation models, or decision-support tools, preferably applied to federal, law enforcement, immigration, or other large-scale operational contexts.
• Prior experience working directly with federal agencies (e.g., DHS, DOJ, ICE, CBP, or similar) on data, reporting, or analytical initiatives is strongly preferred.

Education:

• Bachelor''s Degree required. Preferred fields: Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related discipline.
• Master''s Degree in a quantitative discipline preferred. Degrees in Operations Research or closely related quantitative fields are highly desirable.

Certificates, Licenses and Registrations:

• Data science or ML certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Machine Learning, Databricks ML Associate, or equivalent) preferred.
• Tableau, QLIK, or SQL certifications are a plus.
• Operations research or advanced analytics certifications are a plus.

Communication Skills:

• Excellent verbal and written skills; able to communicate data findings clearly to technical and non-technical federal staff and leadership.
• Ability to produce timely, accurate, and error-free deliverables in writing consistent with FOUO/LES requirements and STU standard operating procedures.
• Able to clearly explain operations research models, assumptions, and limitations to non-technical stakeholders, and document methodologies in a way suitable for official STU use.

Clearance Requirements:

• Active ICE clearance required; preference for candidates currently cleared or cleared within the last two years.
• Ability to obtain and maintain required clearance level is a condition of employment.
• Prior DHS/ICE clearance and recent experience working under DHS/ICE security and reporting requirements are strongly preferred.

Travel:

• Minimal travel expected. On-site in Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area.

Environmental Requirements:

• Mainly a routine office environment.
• May be required to lift up to ten (10) pounds.
• Flexible in working extended hours.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by the individual(s) assigned to this position. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and skills required. Unissant management reserves the right to modify, add, or remove duties and to assign other duties as necessary. In addition, where applicable and available, reasonable accommodation(s) may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions of this position.

Please note: Candidate(s) will be required to go through pre-employment screening.

Unissant, Inc. is a proud Equal Opportunity Employer! (EOE; M/F/Disability/Vets)