Senior Research Scientist

Senior Research Scientist

Department: Client Engagement

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Washington, DC

Reporting To: Adele Wang

Description

Surgo Health is building the Behavioral Intelligence layer for healthcare — revealing why people behave as they do, predicting what they will do next, and helping organizations make the decisions that change outcomes.

A Public Benefit Corporation grounded in two decades of global health experience, Surgo generates foundational behavioral data that reveals the unseen why and builds the AI products that powers decision-grade insights at population scale — equipping healthcare organizations, funders, and public agencies to act on what actually shapes health outcomes: people's beliefs, motivations, and barriers.

From predicting who will enroll and remain in a clinical trial, to understanding what drives treatment decisions, to designing more effective health programs, Surgo brings the missing human layer into decisions traditionally made with clinical data alone.

Backed by 40+ peer-reviewed publications and trusted by partners including the Gates Foundation, J&J, Takeda, Pivotal Ventures, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Surgo is building a future where healthcare organizations don't just understand human behavior, but anticipate it — making healthcare more personal, precise, and effective for everyone.

We are looking for a technically strong Senior Research Scientist to serve as the analytical backbone of the high-profile, multi-year US Youth Mental Health Tracker (YMHT). This is a hugely ambitious and impactful project alongside major partners (Pivotal Ventures, MTV) that will change how mental health is monitored and tracked in the US. This role is for someone who wants to go deep on the science and the build, designing methods, writing rigorous analysis, and engineering the systems behind it. You will work alongside our research leadership and domain experts, who own the subject-matter side, so you can focus on getting the data, the measurement, and the tooling right. This is the right role for you if you are passionate about using advanced analytics and healthcare-related data to deliver impactful insights.

What you’ll achieve:

• Drive the development of one of the most valuable youth thriving datasets in the US: help build and refine a national resource spanning 4 surveys and thousands of young people, and turn it into insight the field relies on
• Make youth thriving data explorable for anyone: help transform the YMHT platform from static dashboards into an interactive interface where stakeholders can query the data
• Pioneer AI-driven tools that put behavioral data directly in stakeholders' hands: work with our Engineering team to build the prototypes that let partners interrogate YMHT independently, opening an entirely new way to access youth thriving insight
• Establish YMHT as a scientific authority in youth mental health: lead peer-reviewed manuscripts and validation papers that cement the platform's credibility with the research community

About you:

We don’t expect you to have every single qualification, but this is our wish-list:

• A PhD or equivalent with 5+ years hands-on, end-to-end quantitative research experience
• Strong command of statistical methods
• Advanced proficiency in R and/or Python for analysis and data work
• Solid data science skills: you'll be working in lockstep with our product and engineering teams on Databricks and Azure
• Experience in applying LLMs/GenAI to research and analytics workflows
• Experience building composite indices or measurement frameworks and/or geospatial analysis is a strong plus
• Desire to work in a fast-paced startup environment amidst uncertainty where you can have an outsized impact on our success
• Desire to learn new skills and a new domain beyond your area of expertise and a ‘let’s try it’ attitude
• Clear scientific and technical communication in English, both written and verbal (for documenting methods and collaborating with the team, rather than public-facing spokesperson work)

Location: This role is Washington DC-based, being in our DC office two days per week.

Benefits

What you’ll love about Surgo:

• Fantastic, fun and collaborative colleagues; opportunity to solve tough challenges in healthcare
• Ability to be entrepreneurial and tremendous opportunities for growth
• Public Benefit Corporation with an impact and equity mission
• Competitive compensation
• We pay 100% of premiums for a Platinum healthcare plan, for employees and dependents
• 3 months paid parental leave
• Generous PTO, 20+ holidays
• Highly competitive 401K
• Professional Development opportunities

Surgo Health is committed to fair, equitable, and transparent practices. Compensation packages are based on several factors such as skill set, prior relevant experience, education, certifications, and market considerations. In addition to base compensation, individuals may be eligible for annual performance-based bonuses and equity (if applicable). We aim to pay salaries that are competitive, benchmarked against companies that are similar in stage, size, and market to Surgo Health.

Our hiring philosophy

We hire for passion and core competencies.

We look for problem solvers and lateral thinkers.

We love it if you have done different things with your time.

If you think you are ideal for this position, write to us even if your experience doesn’t match all the requirements listed above.

Equal Opportunity and Diversity Policy

Surgo believes a diverse, inclusive staff makes a stronger team and more impactful organization and we are committed to building and developing this team and environment. Qualified people of all races, ethnicities, cultures, ages, sex, genders, sexual orientation, gender identities and expressions, languages, social class, marital status, religions, veterans status, and disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.