Frontier AI Physics Researcher (Part-Time, Remote)

mercor; United States; Remote; USD 172,000 - 310,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote work

Job summary

Mercor is seeking Physics Researchers to join a remote, part-time contract program that connects elite physics talent with leading AI research labs. The role emphasizes rigorous problem formulation and model evaluation in a cutting-edge environment.

Ideal candidates hold top-tier PhD or postdoctoral experience, with first-author publications, prestigious fellowships, and relevant patents or grants. Collaboration within a small team is key to success.

Qualifications

• First-author or co-first-author publications in journals like Physical Review Letters, Nature, or Science.
• Doctoral or postdoctoral training at a top-20 global institution for physics or STEM.
• Competitive fellowships such as NSF GRFP, Hertz, or DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship.
• Issued patents, spin-out companies, or grants as a named PI or co-PI.
• International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) Gold/Silver/Bronze medalist.
• Currently or recently in an active research role: PhD candidate, postdoc, instructor, faculty, principal scientist, or industry researcher.

Responsibilities

• Author and review challenging physics problems to train and evaluate frontier AI models.
• Evaluate model outputs on tasks like analytical derivation, mechanism prediction, and numerical modeling.
• Identify areas where current models fail, especially mistakes a working PhD physicist would catch.
• Collaborate with a small program team and other senior contributors.

Skills

First-author publications

Doctoral training

Postdoctoral training

Fellowships (NSF GRFP, Hertz, DOE)**

Education

Doctoral degree or equivalent

Top-20 global physics/STEM program

Job description

Mercor is seeking Physics Researchers to join a remote, part-time contract program that connects elite physics talent with leading AI research labs. The role emphasizes rigorous problem formulation and model evaluation in a cutting-edge environment.

Ideal candidates hold top-tier PhD or postdoctoral experience, with first-author publications, prestigious fellowships, and relevant patents or grants. Collaboration within a small team is key to success.