Overview
Job Title: Senior Informaticist - Health Informatics (Ontologist) - Essex ManagementLocationUS Remote
Position summaryThe Senior Informaticist - Health Informatics (Ontologist) is a role within the Health Informatics and Standards (HIS) Department of the Biomedical Informatics and Data Science (BIDS) Division at Essex. This role brings working expertise in health informatics, clinical data standards, interoperability, ontology, or applied data science to the delivery of technically sound work across federal biomedical research and health IT programs. The Senior Informaticist - Health Informatics (Ontologist)operates with greater autonomy than junior staff, owns well-defined tasks and small projects with minimal supervision, and contributes substantively to team problem-solving and scientific quality. Essex supports NIH programs, including those within the NCI and NIAID, requiring deep standards expertise and clinical credibility, and the Senior Informaticist - Health Informatics (Ontologist) is expected to bring sound technical judgment and domain knowledge to the work.
Responsibilities
Core Functions - Lead and own complex analytical and technical projects with minimal direction; determine approach and execute based on expertise and scientific judgment.
- Mentor and coach Associate and mid-level Informaticists through scientific and technical challenges.
- Serve as backup for the Manager when unavailable; step up to facilitate team meetings or coordinate project activities as needed.
- Apply advanced domain knowledge to design sound solutions, troubleshoot complex problems, and contribute to standards, workflow, and architectural decisions.
- Advise project teams on adoption of data architectures, standards, and data models; assess stakeholder needs and advise on solutions based on requirements.
- Contribute to the team knowledge base: document processes, write technical notes, and participate in knowledge-sharing activities.
- Contribute to at least one Innovation Lab or comparable internal initiative.
- Engage directly with clients, scientific collaborators, and standards body contacts on technical topics; represent BIDS competently in external discussions.
- Participate in interviews of external candidates and provide written evaluations to the hiring manager.
- Contribute technical content to business proposals and capability statements when asked.
- Perform other related duties as assigned.
Functions Specific to Role - Develop, curate, and maintain biomedical ontologies and controlled vocabulary resources; apply frameworks such as OWL, RDF, and SKOS to knowledge representation tasks.
- Map clinical and research concepts to established terminologies including NCIt, SNOMED CT, LOINC, MeSH, RxNorm, and HPO; ensure semantic consistency and coverage across data domains.
- Support the development and governance of Common Data Elements (CDEs) and data dictionaries by providing ontology and terminology expertise; contribute to caDSR curation and maintenance.
- Advise program teams on terminology binding, concept mapping, and semantic interoperability requirements for clinical research and health IT systems.
- Collaborate with Engineering and Bioinformatics teams to ensure that ontology and terminology resources are integrated correctly into data pipelines, annotation workflows, and research infrastructure.
- Contribute to the governance of terminology standards; engage with NCI, OBO Foundry, HL7 terminology working groups, or comparable communities as appropriate.
- Design and deliver training and guidance to program staff on the correct application of controlled vocabularies and ontology-based annotation.
- Design and deliver training and guidance to program staff on the correct application of controlled vocabularies and ontology-based annotation.
Qualifications
Required skills Core Skills - Advanced proficiency in the technical tools, data standards, and analytical approaches relevant to the assigned program and department.
- Demonstrated ability to lead scientific and technical work independently, identify and resolve blockers, and communicate findings clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong mentorship and communication skills; ability to guide junior staff and contribute constructively to team problem-solving.
- Ability to consult in highly specialized information and methodologies; ability to provide technical guidance on the architecture and design of systems and sub-systems.
- Strong written communication skills including technical documentation, standards specifications, and scientific writing.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications.
Skills Specific to Role - Working knowledge of major biomedical ontologies and controlled vocabularies: NCIt, SNOMED CT, LOINC, MeSH, RxNorm, HPO, GO, or equivalent.
- Experience with ontology development and curation using tools such as Protégé, OBO-Edit, or comparable platforms.
- Familiarity with semantic web technologies (OWL, RDF, SPARQL) and their application to biomedical knowledge representation.
- Experience with NCI data infrastructure including caDSR, NCIt, and associated APIs preferred.
- Ability to perform systematic concept mapping and cross-terminology alignment; experience with terminology server platforms (e.g., BioPortal, VSAC, NCI EVS) preferred.
- Ability to perform systematic concept mapping and cross-terminology alignment; experience with terminology server platforms (e.g., BioPortal, VSAC, NCI EVS) preferred.
Required experience Core Experience - Bachelor's or advanced degree in health informatics, biomedical informatics, clinical research, public health, biology, computer science, data science, or a related field.
- 5 or more years of relevant professional or research experience with a demonstrated record of increasing responsibility and technical depth.
- Demonstrated experience designing and leading scientific or technical components of multi-disciplinary projects in a federal or academic research setting.
Experience Specific to Role - Demonstrated experience developing or curating biomedical ontologies or controlled vocabulary resources in a research or federal health IT context.
- Experience contributing to NCI caDSR, NCIt, OBO Foundry, or HL7 terminology working groups preferred.
- Familiarity with FAIR data principles and their application to ontology governance and data sharing preferred.
