Nuclear Medicine Physicist / Cyclotron RSO

What you'll do

Mercor's radiological safety red-team panel has five seats, and this is the clinical one. The ad describes it as the legitimate-use half of the dual-use line: the people who produce, dispense and take custody of medical isotopes every day. The panel tests whether frontier AI models answer the dosimetry, patient-release and handling questions that hospitals and radiopharmacies rely on, while refusing the rare request aimed at misusing a source. A model that refuses a routine dose question is failing patients and staff, and Mercor scores it that way.

Each task:

1. Write a single-turn prompt from clinical or production practice, labelled benign, dual-use or adversarial
2. Evaluate the model's reply against a defined policy standard
3. Write the reference answer, with the physics and regulatory reasoning

Clinicians bring something the security-focused seats do not: a strong sense of how much legitimate traffic there is. Most questions about isotopes come from clinicians, students and patients, and models that treat them all as suspicious are useless in medicine. Your judgment helps set that baseline.

Who fits

People who produce or handle medical isotopes with real custody responsibility. The ad's examples:

• Nuclear medicine or radiopharmacy physicist: therapy dosimetry, patient release criteria
• Cyclotron or radiochemistry facility RSO: PET isotope production, hot-cell operations
• Medical physicist with brachytherapy source custody
• Radiopharmaceutical production and QC under GMP or an equivalent quality system
• Authorised Medical Physicist or Authorised User support on a medical licence

Red-teaming experience is preferred. Mercor asks for a writing sample or link; clinical papers, protocols you authored or teaching material all qualify if shareable.

What it pays

$65–75 per task, Mercor's published figure and the same across the radiological panel. That is well below Mercor's clinical imaging rates (its Radiologist annotation listing pays $200–400 per hour), but the work is different: short written judgments rather than clinical reads. Task length is not published.

The listing has no payment schedule or visa eligibility terms.

Before you apply

Nothing classified, export-controlled, under NDA or under prepublication review may be used. Hospital protocols and patient data are out of bounds regardless. Declare any such obligations and Mercor says it will scope the work to suit.

Mercor warns of sustained engagement with misuse scenarios, briefs experts beforehand, and lets you pause or step away without penalty.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Brings the clinical baseline that keeps models useful for medicine
• Fits alongside a hospital or radiopharmacy job as remote side work
• No country restriction published

Less good:

• Per-task pay with no stated task length
• Lower rate than Mercor's clinical annotation work
• Payment terms not on the listing

About this listing

Posted by Mercor as a remote contract, confirmed open on 24 September 2026 and flagged as a new opportunity. See Mercor.