Science and medicine experts
Scientists and clinicians write graduate-level problems, answer clinical questions and grade model reasoning, as expertise only and with no patient data. The vendors below sell expert work in general terms; none of their pages we read lists scientific or medical fields, so ask each one for head counts by subfield and specialty.
Last checked against vendor pages: 7 November 2026. Figures change; each row names the page it came from.
Vendors to ask about scientific and clinical experts
| Vendor | What its own pages describe | Expert pay published | How you buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surge AI | Sells labs preference data, written demonstrations, rubrics, verifiers and human evals, plus ready-made expert datasets; also builds RL environments. | Not published | Managed service |
| micro1 | Finds, screens and manages specialists whose output is post-training and reinforcement learning data for model builders. | Not published | Managed service |
| Mercor | Hires out its network of experts for human evals and expert-written training sets; also publishes the APEX benchmarks and builds RL environments. | Not published | Managed service |
| Handshake AI | The AI arm of the Handshake careers network. Its Fellowship pays students and specialists to help train and test models for AI labs. | No figure. Pay differs by project, and a fellow sees the hourly rate before signing up | Managed service |
| Labelbox | Labeling software metered in Labelbox Units, with human labeling sold on top. Also runs Alignerr, a network of subject-matter specialists. | Alignerr tells experts they can earn as much as $150/hr | Platform plus services |
| Snorkel AI | Pitches an expert data service to labs and large companies (custom datasets, benchmarks, evals) and builds bespoke agent systems too. | Not published | Platform plus services |
| Prolific | Recruits paid study participants for academic research and AI human data. The researcher pays each participant, and Prolific adds a fee. | Participants: $8/hr floor, $12/hr suggested; Prolific’s own fee comes on top, its rate not given in that article | Marketplace |
Disclosure: a vendor in this table could pay us a fee should one of our introductions turn into a contract. Inclusion, order and wording here are not for sale.
What do science experts produce?
Problems with worked solutions are the core: physics derivations, synthesis routes in chemistry, theorems, and data interpretation in biology. Good problems are hard for current models and have one checkable answer. The second job is grading, where an expert reads a model's reasoning step by step and marks the first wrong step, which is slower and needs more seniority than writing.
| Credential asked for | How to check it yourself |
|---|---|
| PhD or doctoral candidate | Degree verification through the university or a clearinghouse; ask which department and year. Lookup: National Student Clearinghouse. |
| Published researcher | Publication record on ORCID or the journal itself, matched to the person by email or institution. Lookup: ORCID. |
| Olympiad or competition medalist (math) | Results lists published by the competition. Useful for math problem-writing work. |
What does medical expert work involve?
Physicians, nurses and pharmacists write clinical questions with model answers, rank responses for accuracy and safety, and design rubrics that say what a safe answer must include. All of it draws on the clinician's training. None of it needs a patient record, and buyers should keep it that way.
Licenses are public: a physician's state license and any board action can be checked through the state medical board or DocInfo, and specialty certification through the ABMS lookup.
| Credential asked for | How to check it yourself |
|---|---|
| Physician (MD or DO) | License and any board actions in each state, through the state medical board or DocInfo. Lookup: DocInfo (Federation of State Medical Boards). |
| Board-certified specialist | Board certification status through the ABMS lookup. Lookup: Certification Matters (ABMS). |
| Registered nurse | License status through Nursys, which covers most US boards of nursing. Lookup: Nursys. |
How deep is a vendor's bench in your subfield?
This is the question that separates vendors, and it is never on a website. A vendor may have many physicians but few pediatric oncologists, or many chemists but no crystallographers. Ask for:
- the number of qualified experts in each subfield or specialty you need, available in your start month;
- how those numbers were counted (active in the last 90 days, or ever registered);
- the plan if two experts disagree on a hard case.
Labelbox's Alignerr network states expert pay of up to $150 an hour, the highest published figure in our check. It tells you what top experts expect, not what a project costs.
Where these figures come from
- Surge AI (surgehq.ai) (page checked November 7, 2026)
- micro1 (micro1.ai) (page checked November 7, 2026)
- Mercor (mercor.com) (page checked November 7, 2026)
- Handshake AI (support.joinhandshake.com) (page checked November 7, 2026)
- Labelbox (alignerr.com) (page checked November 7, 2026)
- Snorkel AI (snorkel.ai) (page checked November 7, 2026)
- Prolific (researcher-help.prolific.com) (page checked November 7, 2026)
- DocInfo, Federation of State Medical Boards
- Certification Matters, American Board of Medical Specialties
- ORCID
Questions buyers ask
Is a PhD candidate enough, or do I need a finished doctorate?
For graduate-level problem writing, strong candidates are common and cost less. For grading frontier-level reasoning or writing rubrics, many buyers want a completed doctorate and publications in the subfield. Decide per task, not per project.
Does medical expert work involve patient records?
Not on this site. The work covered here is clinicians answering or grading clinical questions and reviewing model outputs from their own knowledge. Projects that need patient data are outside what we introduce.
How many physicians does a project need?
Enough to cover each specialty you grade, with at least two per specialty so disagreements can be measured. Ask each vendor how many board-certified physicians it can field per specialty.
Is Prolific an expert network?
Prolific describes itself as a participant recruitment platform for research and human data for AI. It publishes a minimum participant pay of $8 an hour and a recommended $12, which suits general-population studies more than credentialed expert work. Ask it about screening for qualifications.
Get a quote
About two minutes, in three parts: company ZIP code, your work email, then some taps describing the task. A person reads every brief.
Describe the project in words only. No datasets, prompts, samples or files, here or by email.
Plain terms: we run an introduction service, and a vendor we introduce could pay us for it.
Brief received.
- We set your brief beside what each expert data vendor publishes about fields, credentials and minimums.
- Our email back names one vendor and says why. At that stage your brief has gone nowhere.
- Reply yes and we make the introduction by email; from there, scope, price and contract are settled directly by you and the vendor.
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