Data Scientist I — Social Science Research & AI Solutions

National Opinion Research Center - NORC; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Retirement plan (401k)

Generous PTO & holidays

Parental leave & bereavement leave

Tuition assistance

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Job summary

NORC at the University of Chicago seeks a Data Scientist I to advance AI, ML, and data science across research projects in a hybrid Chicago/DC setting. You will collaborate with researchers, engineers, and subject matter experts to design AI-powered solutions and scalable data workflows that improve research and decision making.

The role emphasizes Python, ML workloads, and normalizing reproducible analytics; you will explore generative AI capabilities and contribute to secure cloud deployments

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computational social science, data science, computer science or a related quantitative field with social science emphasis.
• 4+ years of relevant experience (graduate research, internships, and applied professional experience may be considered).
• Advanced proficiency in Python.
• Strong experience with SQL and relational databases.
• Experience developing software, data pipelines, or analytical applications.
• Experience conducting statistical analysis and machine learning using real-world datasets.
• Knowledge of supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods.
• Experience working with Git and collaborative development workflows.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Excellent communication and technical writing skills.
• Ability to explain technical concepts to diverse audiences.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with methodologists and subject matter experts to design, develop, evaluate, and deploy AI-enabled applications that support research and operational objectives.
• Fine-tune, adapt, or customize machine learning and language models for domain-specific tasks.
• Build and evaluate retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) solutions using vector databases and semantic search techniques for data and analysis projects in NORC's research focus areas.
• Develop prompt engineering strategies and evaluation frameworks for generative AI systems.
• Implement model monitoring, testing, validation, and performance optimization processes.
• Apply natural language processing techniques for text classification, information extraction, summarization, and content analysis.
• Support experimentation with AI agents, tool calling, and workflow automation.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Skills

Python

SQL

ML & Statistical Analysis

Data pipelines

Git & collaboration

Problem solving

Communication & writing

Explain concepts clearly

Education

Bachelor's degree in computational social science / data science / CS or related quantitative field with social science emphasis

Tools

Git

Job description

NORC at the University of Chicago seeks a Data Scientist I to advance AI, ML, and data science across research projects in a hybrid Chicago/DC setting. You will collaborate with researchers, engineers, and subject matter experts to design AI-powered solutions and scalable data workflows that improve research and decision making.

The role emphasizes Python, ML workloads, and normalizing reproducible analytics; you will explore generative AI capabilities and contribute to secure cloud deployments