Post-Doctoral Research Associate; Informatics - Center Health Research

Post-Doctoral Research Associate (Informatics - Center 4 Health Research)

Hiring Department: Center 4 Health Research

Location: Peoria, IL USA

Salary: $43,888 to $68,964 per year

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.

This postdoctoral position will play a critical role in designing, implementing, and analyzing research projects focused on identifying and addressing health disparities, with an emphasis on patient-centered digital health interventions (such as Epic MyChart). This role also provides an opportunity to apply advanced informatics, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and data science methods to understand and mitigate health disparities, enhance patient engagement, and improve outcomes through digital health innovations.

The successful candidate will collaborate with a multidisciplinary team and contribute to building evidence that informs policy and practice.

• Scholarly
  
  Activities:
  
  Prepare manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals and present research findings at national and international conferences. Assist in the development of grant proposals to secure funding for current and future research projects.
• Career Development & Mentorship: Work with the Supervisor to develop a personalized professional growth plan with opportunities for publications, presentations, grant development, and career advancement.
• Research Design & Implementation: Develop and support mixed-methods research strategies to identify and address health disparities, particularly in rural and urban populations, through patient-centered and community-informed approaches.
• Survey & Data Collection: Design and implement survey tools such as REDCap or Qualtrics, and collect, manage, and analyze diverse datasets, including EHR (EPIC), surveys, interviews, and population-level data. Conduct interviews or focus groups, perform statistical and thematic analyses, and apply appropriate models (e.g., regression, ANOVA) to explore outcomes and associations.
• Digital Health & Informatics: Leverage data from EHRs, patient portals, mobile health apps, and wearables to generate insights, predictive models, and decision-support tools; collaborate with informatics teams to evaluate and optimize digital intervention.
• AI, Predictive Modeling & Data Visualization: Utilize methods such as machine learning/predictive modeling to identify trends or high-risk groups, and develop interactive dashboards (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, R, SAS) to communicate findings.
• Open Science & Data Stewardship: Maintain reproducible research practices, ensure data quality and compliance, and uphold IRB and ethical standards throughout project execution.
• Community Engagement: Collaborate with patients, clinicians, and community stakeholders to ensure research benefits all.
• Career & Interdisciplinary Engagement: Collaborate closely with patients, clinicians, community partners, and researchers across disciplines (public health, epidemiology, behavioral science, informatics) to ensure equitable impact and effective dissemination.
• Interdisciplinary
  
  Collaboration:
  
  Partner with researchers in public health, health services, epidemiology, behavioral sciences, and informatics to guide study design and dissemination.
• Perform other related duties and participate in special projects as assigned.

• A Ph.D. in public health, health informatics, health services research, epidemiology, behavioral science, data science, or a related discipline.
• Post-Doc positions are available to individuals who have earned their Ph.D. within the past 5 years.
• Strong background in qualitative and quantitative research methods, with experience in conducting and analyzing qualitative interviews or focus groups using tools such as NVivo.
• Experience in survey design and implementation using tools such as REDCap, Qualtrics, or similar platforms.
• Proficiency with at least one programming language for data analysis (e.g., Python, SAS, R).
• Experience working with healthcare or secondary…