Applied Biology Benchmark Specialist

What you'll do

The biology track of a benchmark-building project for an AI research initiative. The focus is applied and industrial biology rather than the classic academic subfields, which is what sets this listing apart. The four domains named are:

• Pharmaceutical manufacturing
• Industrial and synthetic biology
• Medical research and drug discovery
• Agricultural, environmental and food biology

You are assigned to either authoring (write original questions, rate their difficulty, submit for review) or verification (check pre-written questions for accuracy and rigor, edit where needed, and document every change with a justification).

Each question has one correct answer plus nine plausible but subtly wrong options, a step-by-step chain-of-thought solution in markdown, and 1–5 academic references. Difficulty is rated Medium (intro undergraduate), Hard (advanced undergraduate) or Expert (post-graduate and above). The question must be solvable from its own text alone.

In practice, a good bioprocess or drug discovery question needs a scenario tight enough that there is one defensible answer, which is harder in biology than in physics because so much depends on context and organism. Expect most of the effort to go into closing loopholes.

Who fits

• PhD or doctoral candidate in biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, neuroscience or a close field
• A master's is considered with exceptional depth in one subdomain
• Graduate-level command of biological concepts, experimental design and data interpretation
• Publications or lab experience count as a strong plus
• Excellent written English

Industry scientists from bioprocessing, pharma R&D or agri-food with a doctorate are a particularly good match for the domain list.

What it pays

$60–75 per hour, 10+ hours a week, asynchronous and fully remote. That is marginally below the physics sibling, Applied Physics Benchmark Specialist, at $61–77 for the same task format.

Payment is weekly via Stripe or Wise. H-1B and STEM OPT candidates cannot be supported.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Doctoral candidates are welcome
• Low weekly floor and asynchronous scheduling
• Busy listing: 66 hires this month when we checked
• No country restriction is published

Less good:

• Nine distractors per question is painstaking, and the ad does not say how productivity is judged
• The band is modest for PhD-level work
• Neuroscience appears in the degree list but not in the domain list, so check the fit
• Independent contractor; projects can be extended, shortened or ended early

About this listing

Posted by Mercor as a remote hourly contract, confirmed open on 24 September 2026. Domains, format, pay and qualifications are the ad's own. See Mercor.