Research Informatics Associate

UNC-Chapel Hill • Chapel Hill, NC

4d • Remote

About The Position

The NC TraCS Informatics and Data Science (IDSci) service participates in research informatics innovation initiatives and provides informatics support to the School of Medicine, Gillings School of Global Public Health, and other health affairs schools. The Research Informatics Associate will support innovative clinical, translational, and population health research by developing and enhancing research data resources, databases, and informatics solutions. As a member of the NC TraCS Informatics and Data Science (IDSci) team, this position collaborates with investigators, clinicians, data scientists, and research staff to transform complex clinical data into high-quality, research-ready assets. The role requires expertise in data engineering, data integration, and clinical research informatics to build scalable solutions that accelerate scientific discovery, support investigator-driven research, and ensure compliance with research governance and regulatory requirements. This is an exciting opportunity for a data-driven professional who is passionate about advancing clinical research through technology and collaboration. The successful candidate will play a vital role in building the data infrastructure that enables innovative research and improves health outcomes across North Carolina and beyond.

Requirements

• Three years of work experience working with health care/clinical data in an analytic capacity.
• Experience writing data transformation, integration, or harmonization processes using SQL, Azure Data Factory, or other tools.
• Experience creating and managing batch jobs, scheduled tasks, or automated workflows.
• Expert-level knowledge of SQL programming, data modeling, and relational database systems such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, etc., especially applying these skills to research data uses.
• Experience with at least one of the following data models: OMOP, PCORnet, Epic Clarity, Epic Caboodle, UNC Carolina Data Warehouse. Experience with an enterprise data model for a large health system will also suffice.
• Excellent independent work function with ability to manage multiple projects at once while delivering high-quality work on time.
• Strong written and oral business communication skills and the ability to clearly convey technical concepts to non-technical research collaborators.

Nice To Haves

• Application of this work to research needs is a plus.
• Experience working with health care data in an academic research environment.
• Additional programming competencies outside of SQL, such as R, Python, or Java.
• Demonstrable understanding of regulations around clinical data used for research purposes, particularly HIPAA and Institutional Review Board rules.
• Strong troubleshooting and data investigation skills.
• Expert knowledge of utilizing health care vocabularies (ICD, CPT, RxNorm, SNOMED etc.) and/or OMOP vocabulary/concept tables.
• Experience working any of the following health-related data types: claims data, clinical notes, imaging data, waveform data, etc..
• Experience working with Azure Data Factory, MS Fabric and Fabric Pipelines, or Databricks.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain large-scale clinical-data centric research databases and informatics resources that support clinical and health research.
• Build and optimize data integration, transformation, and harmonization processes to combine data from disparate data sources (e.g., electronic health data from multiple sites, claims data).
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary research teams to translate scientific objectives into scalable data and technology solutions.
• Manage multiple informatics projects while developing documentation, technical standards, and reproducible workflows.
• Contribute informatics expertise to grant proposals, manuscripts, presentations, and other research dissemination activities.
• Ensure adherence to institutional policies and regulatory requirements related to data governance, security, confidentiality, and HIPAA compliance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed