Health Economist, Scale Lab

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Salary Range

$68,000.00 - $120,500.00

Overview

The SCALE (State Collaborations to Advance Learning) initiative at Yale helps state-level social insurance programs-such as Medicaid and SNAP agencies-become more efficient and effective through data-driven, evidence-based insights.

Led by Yale Professors Chima Ndumele and Jacob Wallace, SCALE produces actionable research to support state decision-making, fosters partnerships between academics and policymakers, and delivers real-time support to states navigating the evolving challenges of Medicaid and other safety-net programs.

We are seeking a skilled economist to join the SCALE team and help advance its mission. Based at the Yale School of Public Health, the Health Economist will work closely with Professors Ndumele and Wallace, the Director of Research, and other SCALE team members on projects at the intersection of policy, research, and analytics. They will lead studies that apply advanced statistical, econometric, and machine learning methods to evaluate and improve Medicaid and other safety-net programs. The role includes close collaboration with Connecticut's Department of Social Services (DSS), where SCALE analytics team members are also embedded. The Health Economist will collaborate with agency partners to link data systems, build infrastructure, and uncover new opportunities for policy evaluation. This position offers meaningful opportunities to contribute to peer-reviewed publications in top economics, clinical, and health policy journals, while supporting public programs in serving their communities more effectively.

This is an exciting opportunity for a mission-driven researcher with strong skills in causal inference and statistical programming (e.g., R or Python), who is eager to apply empirical methods to real-world policy challenges. The ideal candidate is fluent in working with large-scale health data, collaborates effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, and is motivated to produce research which translates into real-world policy.

Required Skills and Abilities

1. Proven experience working with large, administrative (or transactional) data sets. Programming expertise in R, python, STATA or another statistical programming language.

2. Excellent communicator, with experience conveying complicated analyses to both technical and non-technical audiences.

3. Exceptional organization skills, and ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects simultaneously.

4. Excellent data literacy: able to triage data challenges appropriately to efficiently focus effort on the most promising research ideas.

5. Proven experience applying causal inference or econometric techniques (e.g., instrumental variables, difference-in-difference, regression discontinuity, randomized controlled designs) to evaluate the impacts of interventions.

Principal Responsibilities

Principal Responsibilities

1. Apply advanced econometric, statistical, and machine learning methods to descriptive, randomized, and quasi-experimental data settings.

2. Design analytic plans which connect data to economics research questions to evaluate policy impacts, distill learnings, and inform safety net program design.

3. Collaborate with state partners to build strong working relationships, surface and diagnose challenges, build infrastructure, and help translate analytic findings into actionable improvements in program design and delivery.

4. Customize the presentation of results, including data visualizations and written summaries, to meet the needs of technical and non-technical audiences.

5. Identify, build, and maintain data assets for research and policy analysis. Create expertise, documentation, standardized analyses, and best practices to improve the quality of research and ease at which new members can be onboarded to data systems.

6. Collaborate with and mentor junior team members (research fellows, pre-doctoral researchers, part-time students) to drive the research forward and foster a collaborative, high-performance culture.

7. Train and support analytic team members in programming and data management, supporting technical skills development, coding best practices, and workflows.

8. Contribute to or co-author published articles, policy briefs, presentations and grant proposals.

9. Identify areas of research that extend and enhance the SCALE research agenda.

Required Education and Experience

PhD in economics, statistics, mathematics, data science, health policy, or a related quantitative field. Experience working with large, administrative (or transactional) data sets. Experience applying causal inference or econometric techniques (e.g., instrumental variables, difference-in-difference, regression discontinuity, randomized controlled designs) to evaluate the impacts of interventions.

Preferred Education and Experience

1. At least 1 year of relevant experience.

2. Experience in health policy research, or work with state/federal policy partners.

3. Familiarity with administrative health care claims data, large-scale individual-level medical records, claims-based analyses, and data sets which contains 10 million+ observations.

4. Knowledge of the Medicaid program, social safety net, and healthcare landscape in the United States.

5. Experience working collaboratively, creating modular analytic tools and using git, to build reproducible and maintainable data science infrastructure.

Job Posting Date

10/16/2025

Job Category

Professional

Bargaining Unit

NON

Compensation Grade

Administration & Operations

Compensation Grade Profile

Manager; Program Leader (P5)

Time Type

Full time

Duration Type

Staff Fixed Duration (Fixed Term)

Work Model

Hybrid

Location

60 College Street, New Haven, Connecticut

Background Check Requirements

All candidates for employment will be subject to pre-employment background screening for this position, which may include motor vehicle, DOT certification, drug testing and credit checks based on the position description and job requirements. All offers are contingent upon the successful completion of the background check. For additional information on the background check requirements and process visit "Learn about background checks" under the Applicant Support Resources section of Careers on the It's Your Yale website.

Health Requirements

Certain positions have associated health requirements based on specific job responsibilities. These may include vaccinations, tests, or examinations, as required by law, regulation, or university policy.

Posting Disclaimer

Salary offers are determined by a candidate's qualifications, experience, skills, and education in relation to the position requirements, along with the role's grade profile and current internal and external market conditions.

The intent of this job description is to provide a representative summary of the essential functions that will be required of the position and should not be construed as a declaration of specific duties and responsibilities of the position. Employees will be assigned specific job-related duties through their hiring department.

The University is committed to basing judgments concerning the admission, education, and employment of individuals upon their qualifications and abilities and seeks to attract to its faculty, staff, and student body qualified persons from a broad range of backgrounds and perspectives. In accordance with this policy and as delineated by federal and Connecticut law, Yale does not discriminate in admissions, educational programs, or employment against any individual on account of that individual's sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, age, disability, status as a special disabled veteran, veteran of the Vietnam era or other covered veteran.

Inquiries concerning Yale's Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment may be referred to the Office of Institutional Equity and Accessibility (OIEA).

Note

Yale University is a tobacco-free campus.