What are the responsibilities and job description for the Research Data Scientist position at US Department of Veterans Affairs?
Please note: There is no pay associated with this position.
This position serves as Without Compensation (WOC) Research Data Scientist 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. EDUCATION: A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.
Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/ . If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/ . RESPONSIBILITIES: Major Duties :
Assisting with data analysis
Participating in research study planning and execution
Performing database creation and maintenance
Providing data quality checks
Performing data analysis
Contributing to and delivering presentations or publications
Work Schedule: Intermittent (Without Compensation) QUALIFICATIONS: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 06/22/2026.
Experience:
Experience conducting advanced statistical analysis using machine learning and discrete-time predictive modeling.
Experience using data to create a final analytic dataset using SQL and SAS.
Experience contributing to and developing presentations and manuscripts reporting on the statistical analysis.
AND
Education: To meet the education requirements for the 1560 Data Science Series, you must possess one of the following:
A degree in mathematics, statistics, computer science, data science or field directly related to the position. The degree must be in a major field of study (at least at the baccalaureate level) that is appropriate for the position.
A combination of education and experience: Courses equivalent to a major field of study (30 semester hours) as shown above, plus additional education or appropriate experience
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/ . SALARY: QuantitativeValue EMPLOYMENT TYPE: Other