Without Compensation (WOC) Research Mathematical Statistician

Full Job Description

Please note: There is no pay associated with this position. This position serves as Without Compensation Research Statistical Assistant within the Office of Research and Development (ORD).

The VA Research Program strives to promote Veteran-centered care to improve patient experiences and outcomes across VA healthcare and community settings, and to advance value-driven care by providing Veterans the highest quality care at the lowest financial burden.

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 03/04/2026.

You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: Basic Requirements: Experience: You must possess general experience in any type of work that demonstrates (1) experience in development and testing of statistical applications, with minimum supervision, (2) experience in recommending modifications to standard statistical methodology, where experimental approach would lead to more relevant results and efficient utilization of a team effort, and (3) experience in defining the problem, project design and choice of statistical analysis method.

AND Education: Bachelor's or graduate/higher level degree that included 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, of which at least 12 semester hours were in mathematics and 6 semester hours were in statistics or possess a combination of education and experience -- at least 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, including at least 12 hours in mathematics and 6 hours in statistics, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

This degree must be from an educational program from an accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (https://www.ed.gov/accreditation) at the time the degree was obtained.

Preferred Qualifications Experience with specific aging cohorts (e.g., Health and Retirement Study, National Health and Aging Trends Study, Framingham Heart Study).

Expertise in causal inference methods, Bayesian statistics, or machine learning applications in aging research. Experience with NIH National Institute on Aging (NIA) funding mechanisms.

Technical Expertise Advanced proficiency in statistical programming languages (such as R, SAS, Python, or Stata) for complex data analysis.

Demonstrated expertise in statistical methods applicable to aging research, including longitudinal data analysis, survival analysis, mixed effects models, and handling missing data common in aging cohorts.

Experience with large-scale datasets typical of aging studies, such as cohort studies, clinical trials in older populations, or administrative health data.

Research and Analytical Experience Minimum 3-5 years of substantive experience analyzing data, including experience with age-related outcomes, geriatric syndromes, or chronic disease progression in older adults.

Proven ability to serve as lead or co-investigator statistician on research projects involving aging demographics.

Track record of translating complex statistical findings into actionable insights for multidisciplinary audiences.

Grant Writing Demonstrated success submitting for and attaining extramural funding as principal investigator, co-investigator, or lead biostatistician on funded grants (NIH, NSF, foundation grants, or equivalent).

Experience developing statistical analysis plans and power calculations for grant proposals.

Scientific Writing and Communication Strong publication record demonstrating ability to lead statistical analysis and manuscript preparation.

Experience mentoring junior researchers and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams. You will be rated on the education and experience required for the position.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social).

Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment.

You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week.

Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities.

Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment.

Physical Requirements: The work is predominantly sedentary. Typically, the employee sits comfortably to do the work.

However, there will be some walking, standing, bending and carrying of items of moderate weight such as large binders, banker style file boxes, meeting materials, papers, books or small parts.

Hand and eye coordination for delicate testing procedures may be the only special physical demand required to perform the work.

For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Major Duties:

The duties of this position include, but are not limited to: Coordinating the development and testing of statistical applications.

Modifies standard statistical methodology where experimental approach would lead to more relevant results and efficient utilization of a team effort.

Defines the problem, project design and choice of statistical analysis method.

Provides analysis of variance (ANOVA) and covariance (ANCOVA), linear/multiple regression or generalized linear models, etc.

and general estimating for data analysis, including handling and modeling of missing data and multiple imputation techniques.

Assistants and supervises the manuscript and abstract writing related to statistical analysis and may participate on new project funding submissions. Work Schedule: Intermittent (Without Compensation)