Chemistry Research Expert - PhD

Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark, General Catalyst, Peter Thiel, Adam D'Angelo, Larry Summers, and Jack Dorsey.

About the role

Part-time contract role (up to 20 hours/week) for a Chemistry Research Collaborator. W-2 employment provided by Cincinnatus LLC, with payroll and compliance managed by them.

Responsibilities

• Review and evaluate research papers in chemistry for correctness, novelty, and significance.
• Author and review challenging chemistry problems to train and evaluate frontier AI models.
• Evaluate model outputs on tasks like retrosynthesis, mechanism prediction, and spectral interpretation.
• Identify areas where current models fail, focusing on mistakes a working PhD chemist would catch.
• Collaborate with a small program team and other senior contributors.

Requirements

• First-author or co-first-author publications in journals like JACS, Nature Chemistry, Science, or Nature Catalysis.
• A doctorate or postdoctoral training from a top-20 global institution in chemistry or a related STEM field.
• A competitive fellowship such as an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship or Sloan Research Fellowship.
• Issued patents, a spin-out company, or grants held as a named Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator.
• An International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) Gold, Silver, or Bronze medal.
• Current or recent experience in an active research role, as a PhD candidate, postdoctoral researcher, or industry researcher.

Pay

$80–$110/hour