Visiting Research Assistant Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Visiting Research Assistant Professor
Hiring Department: Pharmacy Systems Outcomes and Policy
Location: Chicago, IL USA
Requisition ID: 1042483
Posting Close Date: September 16, 2026
Salary: The budgeted salary range for this position is $85,000 to $115,000
About the University of Illinois Chicago
UIC is among the nation's preeminent urban public research universities, a Carnegie RU/VH research institution, and the largest university in Chicago. UIC serves over 34,000 students, comprising one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation and is designated as a Minority Serving Institution (MSI), an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPSI) and a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Through its 16 colleges, UIC produces nationally and internationally recognized multidisciplinary academic programs in concert with civic, corporate and community partners worldwide, including a full complement of health sciences colleges. By emphasizing cutting-edge and transformational research along with a commitment to the success of all students, UIC embodies the dynamic, vibrant and engaged urban university. Recent "Best Colleges" rankings published by U.S. News & World Report, found UIC climbed up in its rankings among top public schools in the nation and among all national universities. UIC has over 300,000 alumni, and is one of the largest employers in the city of Chicago.
This position is intended to be eligible for benefits. This includes Health, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, a Retirement Plan, Paid time Off, and Tuition waivers for employees and dependents.
Position Summary
We seek a Visiting Research Assistant Professor to serve as a senior technical lead on this project which partners with the State of Illinois. The role combines project management, applied data science, reproducible data engineering, and report writing. The successful candidate will own the pipeline that turns claims submissions into analysis-ready data, lead substantive analyses of that data, and translate results into statutory reports for the State and into peer-reviewed work.
This is a full-time, benefits-eligible academic appointment. It is well-suited to a recent doctoral graduate or early-career researcher who wants to work on a policy problem with immediate real-world consequences while building a publication record from a novel data asset.
Duties & Responsibilities
• Project Management
• Manage project workstreams against fixed statutory deadlines, including the dispensing cost report due December 31, 2026.
• Coordinate day-to-day work with Illinois Department of Insurance staff, project counsel, and college leadership, translating between technical and non-technical audiences.
• Track PBM submission cycles: intake, completeness review, follow-up on deficient filings, and resubmission handling.
• Supervise and mentor graduate research assistants and junior analytic staff.
• Maintain project documentation, decision logs, and internal status reporting.
• Data Science and Analysis
• Lead analyses of transaction-level pharmacy claims, including spread pricing, rebate flows and pass-through, dispensing cost, and utilization patterns.
• Develop comparative measures that support valid cross-PBM comparison, including benchmark construction against licensed drug compendium reference data.
• Design and execute descriptive and inferential analyses appropriate to regulatory questions, with explicit attention to the limits of what the collected data can support.
• Conduct sensitivity and robustness checks sufficient to defend findings against methodological challenge.
• Identify and document data quality problems in PBM submissions and their analytic consequences.
• Reporting and Writing
• Draft statutory and technical reports delivered to the Illinois Department of Insurance.
• Write methods documentation that makes analytic choices explicit and defensible to regulators, regulated entities, and the public.
• Prepare briefing materials, summary memoranda, and presentation materials for state agency and legislative audiences.
• Contribute to peer-reviewed manuscripts and conference presentations arising from the project
Minimum Qualifications

• PhD in health economics, health services research, health policy, pharmacoeconomics, biostatistics, epidemiology, informatics, data science, or a closely related field. Candidates who have completed all doctoral requirements by the appointment start date will be considered.
• Demonstrated experience working with large administrative claims or other large-scale administrative datasets.
• Proficiency in at least one statistical programming language used for analysis at scale (R, Python, SAS, or Stata).
• Experience with version control (Git) and reproducible analytic workflows.
• Demonstrated scientific and technical writing ability.
• Ability to manage concurrent workstreams against firm external deadlines.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with pharmacy claims data structures, including NDC coding, prescription drug event records, and pharmacy identifiers such as NCPDP.
• Knowledge of pharmaceutical supply chain economics, PBM business models, rebate and spread pricing arrangements, or drug pricing benchmarks.
• Experience building production or near-production data pipelines, including workflow orchestration, containerization, and automated testing.
• Prior work with government agencies, regulators, or in a policy-facing research setting.
• Experience supervising junior analytic staff
• A publication record in health policy, health economics, or health services research.

The University of Illinois System is an equal opportunity employer, including but not limited to disability and/or veteran status, and complies with all applicable state and federal employment mandates. Please visit Required Employment Notices and Posters to view our non-discrimination statement and find additional information about required background checks, sexual harassment/misconduct disclosures, and employment eligibility review through E-Verify.
The university provides accommodations to applicants and employees. Request an Accommodation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools may be used in some portions of the candidate review process for this position, however, all employment decisions will be made by a person.