Biology & Biophysics Research Collaborator (Part-time) (Train AI Models Part Time!)

About the Role

hackajob is collaborating with Mercor to recruit a select cohort of accomplished biology and biophysics researchers to contribute to the next generation of AI systems for scientific reasoning. Our partner labs are building models that need to reason about molecular biology, biophysics, structural biology, immunology, neuroscience, genomics, and adjacent disciplines at the level of a working researcher — not a textbook. To get there, they need contributors whose own research sits at the frontier. This position will be placed at a leading AI lab as part of their extended workforce.

Responsibilities

• Review and evaluate research papers in biology and biophysics for rigor, novelty, and scientific validity
• Author and review challenging biology/biophysics problems used to train and evaluate frontier AI models
• Evaluate model outputs on tasks ranging from mechanism prediction to experimental design to literature interpretation
• Surface areas where current models fail — especially the kinds of mistakes a working PhD would catch immediately
• Collaborate with a small program team and other senior contributors

Qualifications

We're looking for researchers who meet several of the following:

• First-author or co-first-author publications in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, PNAS, eLife, NEJM, Nature Methods, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, or Nature Communications
• A doctorate or postdoctoral training from a top-20 global institution in the life sciences or a related STEM field
• A competitive fellowship, such as an HHMI fellowship (including EXROP, Hanna H. Gray, or Investigator), an NIH F31/F32/K99, an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship or Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, or a Damon Runyon, Helen Hay Whitney, Jane Coffin Childs, Searle, Pew, Sloan, Packard, Simons, or Fulbright award
• Issued patents, a spin-out company, or grants held as a named Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator
• Current or recent experience in an active research role, as a PhD candidate, postdoctoral researcher, instructor, faculty member, principal scientist, or industry researcher

Outstanding senior PhD students and recent graduates with strong publication records are strongly encouraged to apply; the depth of your research output matters more than years of experience.

Schedule

Part-time: up to 20 hours per week

Pay

Compensation reflects research seniority and credentials