Remote Convection Stability Research Scientist

Obsidian; Greater London; Remote; GBP 83,000 - 115,000; Part time

Job summary

Obsidian is seeking researchers to contribute to CritPt, a public benchmark of physics challenges designed to test frontier AI reasoning in subfields like buoyancy-driven convection and Rayleigh-Bénard stability. You will engage with publication-level problems, perform linear stability analyses, and document reasoning in detail.

Remote, part-time, 10 hours/week over 8–10 weeks, starting immediately. Compensation is $80–$110 per hour, depending on depth of subdomain match and publication record.

Qualifications

• PhD in fluid mechanics, applied mathematics, mechanical engineering or closely related field.
• Published work on convection stability specifically.
• Three to five representative papers with DOIs or arXiv IDs, ideally from the last five years.
• Working proficiency with LaTeX, Python and Jupyter; VS Code extension familiarity helpful.
• English at B2 or above, including written reasoning.

Skills

Boussinesq approximation and buoyancy

Linear stability analysis

Normal-mode perturbation expansion

Marginal stability analysis

Spectral eigenvalue methods

Darcy's law and porous-medium flow

Education

PhD in fluid mechanics or closely related field

Tools

LaTeX

Python

Jupyter

Job description

Obsidian is seeking researchers to contribute to CritPt, a public benchmark of physics challenges designed to test frontier AI reasoning in subfields like buoyancy-driven convection and Rayleigh-Bénard stability. You will engage with publication-level problems, perform linear stability analyses, and document reasoning in detail.

Remote, part-time, 10 hours/week over 8–10 weeks, starting immediately. Compensation is $80–$110 per hour, depending on depth of subdomain match and publication record.