Remote Applied Physics PhD — AI Assessment Author

Mercor; New York (NY); Remote; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Part time

Job summary

Mercor is seeking expert physicists to author and review high-quality academic assessment content for an AI research initiative. You will write and verify rigorous multiple-choice questions across core physics domains and help establish gold-standard benchmarks used to advance AI capabilities.

Remote, asynchronous work with a commitment of 10+ hours per week. Ideal candidates hold a PhD or be doctoral candidates, with strong English writing, problem design experience, and the ability to provide

Qualifications

• PhD or doctoral candidate in Physics or closely related field.
• Strong command of graduate-level physics concepts and mathematical formalism.
• Experience with rigorous academic problem design or physics olympiad writing is a strong plus.

Responsibilities

• Author original physics questions that test deep conceptual understanding, not surface-level recall.
• Ensure questions are unambiguous, self-contained, and precisely defined — all necessary information must be in the problem statement.
• Rate each question's difficulty: Medium (intro undergraduate), Hard (advanced undergraduate), or Expert (post-graduate and above)
• Provide 1 correct answer and 9 plausible but subtly incorrect alternatives that challenge expert-level solvers
• Write step-by-step Chain-of-Thought solutions with clear, concise intermediate steps in markdown format
• Supply 1–5 academic references per question from reputable sources (peer-reviewed journals, university repositories)
• For verification tasks: flag issues with clarity, completeness, precision, or solvability and justify any edits made

Skills

Graduate-level physics knowledge

Problem design

English writing

Education

PhD in Physics or related field

Master's degree with exceptional depth

Job description

Mercor is seeking expert physicists to author and review high-quality academic assessment content for an AI research initiative. You will write and verify rigorous multiple-choice questions across core physics domains and help establish gold-standard benchmarks used to advance AI capabilities.

Remote, asynchronous work with a commitment of 10+ hours per week. Ideal candidates hold a PhD or be doctoral candidates, with strong English writing, problem design experience, and the ability to provide