Ontology Specialist

Role: Ontology Specialist

Contract: 1 year

Location: Remote

Rate: $70/hour W2

Summary:

Ontology specialist to design and maintain the knowledge representation that underpins healthcare administrative data. The role translates tacit domain knowledge into formal RDF/OWL structures, aligns with industry standards (FHIR, SNOMED, ICD), and informs how downstream AI and analytics systems reason over the data.

Core Responsibilities:

• Design and maintain ontologies (RDF, OWL, SKOS) for the healthcare administrative domain.
• Map and align internal models against FHIR, SNOMED, and ICD.
• Query and validate the knowledge graph using SPARQL; iterate on representation patterns.
• Codify tacit business knowledge into formal structures, in partnership with domain experts.
• Explain tradeoffs between modeling approaches and recommend a direction.
• Inform graph database design (Neo4j, TypeDB, or similar) and integration with AI systems.

Technical Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree and 7 years in data/knowledge engineering, with significant time in ontology or knowledge representation.
• Hands-on with RDF, OWL, SKOS, or similar.
• Proficiency with SPARQL for querying and manipulating RDF/OWL data.
• Hands-on with an ontology authoring tool (Protégé or equivalent).
• Working knowledge of ontology design patterns.
• Familiarity with healthcare standards (FHIR, SNOMED, ICD) applied to administrative domains.
• Graph database experience (Neo4j, TypeDB, or similar).
• Python and exposure to NoSQL, SQL, and graph databases. • Familiarity with AI frameworks.

Other Requirements:

• Pattern codification: Translates tacit business knowledge into formal structures.
• Healthcare context: Understands clinical and administrative domain complexity.
• Industry awareness: Tracks ontology and knowledge graph evolution; brings relevant insights back.
• Experimentation: Tests modeling approaches before committing to architecture; explains tradeoffs from hands-on experience.
• Exposure to reasoners (e.g., HermiT, Pellet, ELK), SHACL for shape/constraint validation, and terminology services (UMLS, terminology servers) is a plus.