If he is being called to study a (the?) super massive black hole (which normally would be the very big one at the center of any galaxy), then I’d imagine he is somewhat of an expert in astronomical anomalies, maybe black holes, wormholes and hyperspace in particular. Here are a few ideas:
Maybe he is with a research team trying to study the effects of living in hyperspace for prolonged periods of time (setting the groundwork for an eventual extragalactic expedition, possibly).
He could be partnered with some xenobiologists who are following a herd of purgils and trying to understand how they can detect safe hyperspace routes.
Maybe he is sitting on a research station near the Unknown Regions trying to either A) detect the gravitational signs of black holes to help chart those regions, or B) he is trying to find predictive patterns in wormholes that randomly appear and disappear in the Unknown Regions, which make that area of space so hard to travel in.
I know you said no tech, but maybe he could be part of a team trying to develop a ship or station that can produce a concentrated anti-gravity field. The purpose being that it could help temporarily negate mass shadows of large interstellar objects and allow for ships to make shortcuts along various hyperspace routes. It’s basically like a reverse Interdictor in its function. It could be extremely useful for the military, who might want to sneak ships around enemy lines. The ship he is working on could actually be a modified Interdictor cruiser that the Republic acquired from the old Empire. Maybe they are still trying to figure out the kinks, so it wouldn’t be a game changer because it still really isn’t stable or reliable yet.
I really like the prolonged living in hyperspace study. What would be a negative side effect of living in hyperspace and what could I call this syndrome? In Legends, they have something called Hyper-Rapture which is going insane by looking out at hyperspace too much but that’s just looking not prolonged travel.