Optum Life Sciences is seeking a Senior Director, Epidemiology to lead its Epidemiology function and advance scientific excellence, real-world evidence generation, and client impact across pharmaceutical, biotechnology, government, and healthcare sectors. This leader will serve as a trusted scientific advisor, guide complex epidemiologic research programs, develop high-performing teams, and support business growth through scientific credibility and strategic client partnerships.
The successful candidate will combine deep epidemiology expertise, client-facing scientific leadership, and proven people leadership experience within a complex, multi-level organization. The Senior Director will lead an Epidemiology organization consisting of approximately 6-8 direct reports and 75-80 employees overall, fostering scientific excellence, leadership development, and organizational growth.
This leader will oversee epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, real-world evidence, safety research, post-authorization research, post-market research, and non-interventional research initiatives. The role will balance external scientific and client engagement with internal team leadership, study oversight, quality review, issue resolution, and organizational management.
The Senior Director will also leverage and encourage responsible use of enterprise-approved AI, analytics, and automation capabilities to enhance the efficiency, scalability, and quality of epidemiology workflows while maintaining appropriate scientific oversight, transparency, validation, and governance. AI will support scientific excellence and operational effectiveness rather than serve as the primary selection criterion for the role.
You'll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. For all hires in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area, you will be required to work in the office a minimum of four days per week.
Primary Responsibilities:- Scientific Leadership
- Provide strategic leadership across epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, real-world evidence, safety research, post-authorization research, post-market research, and non-interventional research initiatives
- Ensure scientific rigor and quality throughout 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
- Serve as a scientific authority 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
- Client Leadership
- Serve as a senior scientific advisor to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, government, and healthcare clients
- Represent Optum Life Sciences as the Epidemiology subject-matter expert in discussions with current and prospective clients
- Shape evidence-generation strategies and address complex scientific, regulatory, client, and business challenges
- Build trusted relationships with scientific, executive, and client stakeholders
- Support proposal development, client expansion, and business-growth opportunities through scientific expertise and credibility
- Partner with sales and business-development colleagues while serving as the scientific expert rather than the primary salesperson
- Support resolution of high-priority client issues and ensure delivery of scientifically credible solutions
- People Leadership
- Lead and develop epidemiologists, scientific leaders, and people managers within a multi-level organization
- Provide leadership through layers, establishing clear expectations for scientific quality, collaboration, accountability, and execution
- Coach managers and senior scientific professionals while developing future leaders and strengthening succession readiness
- Foster a culture of scientific excellence, inclusion, collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning
- Align talent and scientific expertise with client commitments and evolving business priorities
- Address staffing, organizational, performance, and capability needs across the Epidemiology function
- Attract, develop, engage, and retain high-caliber scientific talent
- Operational Leadership
- Lead the performance, quality, governance, and operational effectiveness of the Epidemiology function
- Establish quality standards, review processes, decision rights, and escalation pathways that support successful delivery
- Improve the processes used to plan, review, staff, and execute 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
- Partner across scientific, commercial, delivery, technology, data, and operational teams to meet business objectives
- Maintain an effective balance between external engagement and internal leadership responsibilities
- Innovation and AI
- Champion responsible adoption of enterprise-approved AI, analytics, and automation capabilities that enhance scientific quality, operational efficiency, scalability, and employee experience
- Identify opportunities to apply approved AI and automation capabilities within epidemiology and evidence-generation workflows
- Encourage responsible experimentation and adoption while maintaining human accountability and scientific oversight
- Ensure appropriate validation, transparency, privacy, quality, regulatory consideration, and governance of AI-enabled approaches
- Partner with technology, privacy, legal, compliance, and scientific stakeholders when evaluating AI-enabled capabilities
- Promote practical AI fluency across leaders and teams without requiring AI model development or platform engineering expertise
You'll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role as well as provide development for other roles you may be interested in.
Required Qualifications:- Master's degree or higher in Epidemiology, Public Health, Biostatistics, Medicine, Health Services Research, or a related scientific discipline
- 10+ 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 within 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
- Demonstrated ability to translate complex scientific information into actionable recommendations for clients, business leaders, and technical audiences
- Demonstrated ability to oversee scientific quality and resolve complex study, client, or delivery challenges
- Proven solid written, verbal, presentation, executive communication, and stakeholder-management skills
- Willing or ability to up to 20-30% travel is expected for client engagements, industry conferences, scientific presentations, leadership meetings, and other business-related activities
Preferred Qualifications- PhD, DrPH, ScD, MD, or related doctoral degree
- Experience with FDA-regulated or regulatory epidemiology programs
- Industry experience within a pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life sciences, contract research, consulting, or healthcare solutions organization
- Experience supporting business-development, proposal, client expansion, or commercial-growth activities
- 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 any specific technology platform
- Experience implementing AI-enabled or advanced analytics capabilities within scientific, research, consulting, or healthcare environments
- Demonstrated scientific thought leadership through publications, presentations, conferences, professional society involvement, or similar external contributions
*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy
Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $159,300 - $273,200 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.
Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.
