Senior Public Health Scientist, CDC

Location:

Remote with occasional travel to CDC facilities or meetings as required

Employment Type:

Full-Time

The Senior Public Health Scientist serves as a senior scientific advisor supporting high-visibility and time-sensitive public health initiatives within CDC's Executive Advisory, Science and Operations (EASO) Unit. The position provides scientific leadership, technical consultation, research oversight, evidence synthesis, and strategic analytical support to CDC leadership, program offices, and multidisciplinary project teams.

The successful candidate will lead and support scientific reviews, coordinate complex research activities, evaluate emerging scientific evidence, guide analytical approaches, and translate technical findings into actionable recommendations for executive decision-makers. The role requires a strong balance of scientific credibility, strategic thinking, project leadership, and stakeholder engagement.

The Senior Public Health Scientist will frequently collaborate with epidemiologists, biostatisticians, data scientists, programmers, clinicians, policy experts, and senior government officials to address public health questions of national significance.

• Serve as a senior scientific advisor supporting CDC leadership on emerging public health, scientific, and operational issues.
• Conduct scientific reviews of reports, publications, manuscripts, white papers, technical analyses, and executive briefing materials.
• Evaluate scientific methodologies, evidence quality, data interpretation, and validity of conclusions.
• Identify strengths, limitations, and potential implications of research findings.
• Provide recommendations regarding scientific approaches, study design, surveillance strategies, and analytical methods.
• Support development of scientific products, publications, technical reports, and decision-support materials.

• Lead rapid evidence reviews and comprehensive literature assessments on emerging topics.
• Synthesize scientific, clinical, epidemiological, and operational evidence.
• Evaluate competing scientific perspectives and communicate implications clearly to leadership.
• Support development of white papers, strategic analyses, briefings, and executive summaries.
• Assist CDC programs in identifying innovative methods, interventions, and emerging scientific approaches.

• Manage multiple concurrent scientific initiatives and special projects.
• Help define project scope, objectives, timelines, and required resources.
• Coordinate work across internal and external subject matter experts.
• Monitor project progress and ensure scientific rigor throughout project execution.
• Support scientific clearance and review processes when required.

• Partner with data scientists, programmers, and analysts to guide study design and analytical strategies.
• Review statistical methodologies and analytical outputs.
• Translate complex findings into actionable public health insights.
• Support projects utilizing administrative, surveillance, claims, and large-scale public health datasets.
• Provide scientific oversight for AI-assisted analytical products and programming outputs.

• Provide scientific oversight for analyses utilizing CMS, claims-based, surveillance, and other large health data assets.
• Collaborate with technical staff supporting SAS, R, SQL, Python, and related analytic environments.
• Guide development of research cohorts, exposure‑outcome analyses, and population‑based studies.
• Validate scientific rationale behind analytic approaches and interpretations.