Senior Clinical Informatics and Ontology Specialist

Location: Bethesda, MD

Work Type: Hybrid Work (Minimum 2 Days Onsite)

Required Clearance: Ability to obtain Public Trust

LCG, Inc. provides insight into the impact of public programs that advance our society. For more than 20 years, LCG, Inc. has been a leading provider of technology-based consulting services, biomedical research support, grants management, decision analytics, software engineering and IT operations that enhance the transparency, efficiency, and empowerment of programs with health and science missions

Job Title: Senior Clinical Informatics and Ontology Specialist

Job Summary: This critical role involves the design, development, analysis, enhancement, and lifecycle management of biomedical terminology and ontology resources used across cancer research, clinical care, regulatory processes, and public health data standards.

The candidate will serve as a lead subject matter expert, supporting technical and scientific teams in creating, editing, maintaining, publishing, and integrating controlled terminologies including the NCI Thesaurus (NCIt) and NCI Metathesaurus (NCIm). The role requires deep domain knowledge in biomedical informatics and significant experience managing semantic content, ontological modeling, and clinical data standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical lead and senior subject matter expert on biomedical terminology and ontology content development projects supporting client operations.
• Direct and support teams in high-level systems analysis, semantic content integration, and documentation.
• Lead the creation, maintenance, extension, and mapping of biomedical terminologies such as NCIt and NCIm.
• Engage in full lifecycle terminology management including semantic modeling, quality control, publishing, and deployment to production environments.
• Analyze stakeholder requirements, conduct terminology gap analyses, and provide recommendations for improving data standards and interoperability.
• Contribute to and enhance processes, architecture, and tools supporting NCI's semantic infrastructure and terminology services.
• Serve as a liaison between NCI, federal partners, and the biomedical community to ensure alignment with current standards, best practices, and research needs.
• Participate in the evaluation, testing, and deployment of software tools such as Protege (NCI Edition), MEME, EVSREST API, and the EVS-SIP.
• Support the training and mentorship of team members in the use of terminology development tools.
• Provide consulting services in ontology best practices, knowledge representation, and semantic standards for biomedical research and clinical data systems.
• Produce deliverables including data files, metadata, documentation, reports, analyses, and presentations aligned with client goals.

Qualifications

• A minimum of ten (10) years of progressive experience in biomedical or scientific terminology, ontology development, and information systems design.
• Advanced degree required. One of the following is strongly preferred:
• Ph.D., M.D., D.O., or Pharm.D. with at least five additional years of direct experience in biomedical information systems content development and terminology standards. A Master's degree in a related field plus five additional years of experience beyond the ten-year minimum may substitute for a Ph.D.
• For pathologist roles: M.D. or D.O. with pathology specialization and at least five years of academic or clinical pathology experience. Experience in oncopathology is strongly preferred.
• Proven success in content development for biomedical terminology/ontology products and services.
• Demonstrated expertise in major biomedical standards (e.g., SNOMED CT, LOINC, ICD-10-CM, GO, MED-RT, ChEBI, HGNC, etc.).
• Expertise in using EVS tools and technologies such as NCI Protege (3.4), MEME, EVS REST APIs, Elasticsearch, Stardog triplestore, and semantic validation workflows.
• In-depth knowledge of terminology modeling in OWL2 and RDF, and experience supporting terminology publication in BioPortal, UMLS, and other registries.
• Familiarity with terminology and semantic lifecycle management in cloud environments (e.g., AWS-based infrastructure).
• Ability to direct content integration, semantic mapping, and quality assurance efforts.
• Strong leadership, communication, and coordination skills for collaboration with diverse technical and scientific stakeholders.
• Experience in managing large-scale biomedical informatics projects or federal research data programs.

Compensation and Benefits

The projected compensation range is $90,000 - $130,000. The projected compensation range for this position is to per year benchmarked in the Maryland/DC/Virginia area. The salary range provided is a good faith estimate representative of all experience levels. Salary at LCG is determined by various factors, including but not limited to role, location, the combination of education/training, knowledge, skills, competencies, certifications, and work experience.

LCG offers a competitive, comprehensive benefits package which includes health insurance options (medical, dental, vision), life and disability insurance, retirement plan contributions, as well as paid leave, federal holidays, professional development, and lifestyle benefits.

Devoted to Fair and Inclusive Practices

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law.

If you are interested in applying for employment with LCG and need special assistance or an accommodation to apply for a posted position, contact our Human Resources department by email at hr@lcginc.com.

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