Senior Director, Epidemiology - Remote

UnitedHealth Group•Boston, MA

3d•$159,300 - $273,200•Remote

About The Position

Optum Life Sciences is seeking a Senior Director to lead its Epidemiology function and advance scientific excellence, real-world evidence generation, and client impact across pharmaceutical, biotechnology, government, and healthcare sectors. The role combines senior scientific advising, oversight of complex epidemiologic research programs, development of high-performing teams, and support for business growth through scientific credibility and strategic client partnerships. The leader will oversee an organization of approximately 6–8 direct reports and 75–80 employees overall. The position leads work spanning epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, real-world evidence, safety research, post-authorization and post-market research, and non-interventional research. It balances external scientific and client engagement with internal team leadership, study oversight, quality review, issue resolution, and organizational management. The Senior Director will champion enterprise-approved AI, analytics, and automation to improve workflows while maintaining scientific oversight, transparency, validation, and governance. The role is remote within the United States. Employees hired in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area must work in the office at least four days per week. Travel of up to 20–30% is expected for client engagements, conferences, presentations, leadership meetings, and other business activities. The role’s annual salary range is $159,300–$273,200, based on full-time employment. Remote employees must follow UnitedHealth Group’s Telecommuter Policy.

Requirements

Master’s degree or higher in Epidemiology, Public Health, Biostatistics, Medicine, Health Services Research, or a related scientific discipline.
10 or more years of professional epidemiology experience.
Experience leading managers and multi-level organizations, including leadership through layers and development of future leaders.
Experience serving as a scientific advisor or client-facing scientific leader in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, government, healthcare, life sciences, or related environments.
Experience providing scientific oversight for complex epidemiology or evidence-generation studies.
Experience working with claims, electronic health record, registry, or other real-world healthcare data sources.
Demonstrated expertise in epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, real-world evidence, safety research, post-authorization research, post-market research, non-interventional research, or related epidemiologic disciplines.
Ability to translate complex scientific information into actionable recommendations for clients, business leaders, and technical audiences.
Ability to oversee scientific quality and resolve complex study, client, or delivery challenges.
Strong written, verbal, presentation, executive communication, and stakeholder-management skills.
Willingness or ability to travel up to 20–30% for business activities.
Remote employees must adhere to UnitedHealth Group’s Telecommuter Policy.

Nice To Haves

PhD, DrPH, ScD, MD, or related doctoral degree.
Experience with FDA-regulated or regulatory epidemiology programs.
Industry experience in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life sciences, contract research, consulting, or healthcare solutions organizations.
Experience supporting business development, proposals, client expansion, or commercial growth.
Experience leading a large-scale epidemiology organization, center of excellence, or matrixed scientific function.
Experience with safety research, post-authorization safety studies, or post-market evidence generation.
Experience working with registry data in addition to claims and electronic health record data.
Experience using SAS or comparable analytical platforms; epidemiology subject-matter expertise is valued more highly than experience with a specific technology platform.
Experience implementing AI-enabled or advanced analytics capabilities in scientific, research, consulting, or healthcare environments.
Scientific thought leadership demonstrated through publications, presentations, conferences, professional society involvement, or similar external contributions.

Responsibilities

Provide strategic leadership across epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, real-world evidence, safety research, post-authorization research, post-market research, and non-interventional research.
Ensure scientific rigor and quality across study design, protocol development, analysis, interpretation, and client deliverables.
Provide senior scientific oversight for teams executing epidemiology studies and client engagements.
Review scientific outputs, address quality concerns, resolve escalations, and ensure study execution meets scientific and client expectations.
Advise on the use of claims, electronic health record, registry, and other real-world healthcare data sources.
Guide assessment of treatment outcomes, safety, and benefit-risk considerations using epidemiologic methods and real-world evidence.
Advance evidence-generation methodologies and epidemiologic best practices.
Strengthen external visibility through publications, presentations, conference participation, professional societies, and broader industry engagement.
Serve as a senior scientific advisor to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, government, and healthcare clients and represent Optum Life Sciences as its Epidemiology subject-matter expert.
Shape evidence-generation strategies; address scientific, regulatory, client, and business challenges; and build trusted stakeholder relationships.
Support proposal development, client expansion, business-growth opportunities, and high-priority client issue resolution through scientific expertise.
Lead and develop epidemiologists, scientific leaders, and people managers across a multi-level organization; coach managers and senior scientific professionals and develop future leaders.
Set expectations for scientific quality, collaboration, accountability, and execution; foster inclusion, innovation, and continuous learning; and align talent with client commitments and business priorities.
Address staffing, organizational, performance, and capability needs, and attract, develop, engage, and retain scientific talent.
Lead the Epidemiology function’s performance, quality, governance, and operational effectiveness; establish standards, review processes, decision rights, and escalation pathways.
Improve processes for planning, reviewing, staffing, and executing evidence-generation programs; identify and mitigate scientific, operational, client, workforce, and organizational risks.
Use business, workforce, and client insights to guide resource and capacity decisions, and partner with scientific, commercial, delivery, technology, data, and operational teams.
Balance external engagement with internal leadership responsibilities.
Champion responsible adoption of enterprise-approved AI, analytics, and automation; identify appropriate workflow applications and encourage responsible experimentation while maintaining human accountability and scientific oversight.
Ensure appropriate validation, transparency, privacy, quality, regulatory consideration, and governance for AI-enabled approaches; partner with relevant technology, privacy, legal, compliance, and scientific stakeholders.
Promote practical AI fluency across leaders and teams without requiring AI model development or platform engineering expertise.