Stories From The Lab icon

Stories From The Lab


HHS and its agencies provide a wide range of positions for scientists to explore their research specialties. Making the switch to the federal government from academia can be a very rewarding career path that starts in the lab environment and ends in global health advances.


Epidemiology Studies at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Yellow HHS Logo on a blue background

I work as an Epidemiologist as part of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research safety team. We work to ensure that FDA-approved medications are safe for the public. In addition to assessing newly published literature on FDA-regulated products and giving input on sponsor submissions, together with the team, I take a lead in conducting safety assessments of drugs covered by my team using FDA's Sentinel Initiative. Sentinel is an active surveillance monitoring system for medical products that uses linked administrative and insurance claims databases. Sentinel helps us to investigate safety questions about the products FDA regulates after they are on the market.

It’s exciting to be on the frontlines of exploring this powerful tool and helping to identify safety issues of interest to FDA and critical to the public. It’s really interesting to get the results from our queries and to help interpret the data we get back.

Job Openings

Ready to start your career in the field, lab, or office at HHS or its agencies? Learn more about what positions are currently available at home and abroad.


Field icon

Stories from The Field

HHS and its agencies provide a global workforce through a variety of roles. Scientists and human services professionals are on the front lines of global health by living and working in critical sites around the world.

Read More

Office Icon

Stories from the Office

HHS and its agencies provide opportunities for a wide range of individuals with diverse professional backgrounds. These roles not only support leadership at HHS, but specialists also create a foundation on which advances in medicine and human services are built.

Read More