Research Operations Specialist for AI Training

Join an innovative initiative focused on building realistic enterprise environments for training and evaluating frontier AI agents. This role requires experienced professionals in research operations and administration from top R1 universities, major academic medical centers, NIH or federal research agencies, and large nonprofit research organizations. Your expertise will help recreate the digital workspaces that drive real research, allowing you to design tasks that challenge state-of-the-art AI systems.

• Construct a realistic digital workspace based on your daily use of Drive folders, including grant proposals, budgets, IRB/IACUC protocols, post-award financial reports, compliance training records, and relevant email threads, while incorporating tools like SharePoint, Box, DocuSign, and ADP Workforce Now.
• Develop multi-step tasks that reflect your actual workflows, requiring navigation through various applications, files, and stakeholders, thereby challenging frontier AI agents.
• Collaborate with fellow research-operations and administration experts to design the environment, define task scope, and review scenarios for realism and rigor.
• Engage asynchronously with research teams to refine task designs and establish evaluation criteria for research-administration agent benchmarks.
• Contribute to cutting-edge AI research and benchmarking, with your work directly influencing how leading labs train and evaluate the next generation of AI systems.

• Minimum of 3 years of full-time experience at a top R1 university, academic medical center, federal research agency, or large research nonprofit.
• Experience in areas such as:
• Pre-award grants management (NIH, NSF, DOE, DoD, foundation grants)
• Post-award financial/compliance management (Uniform Guidance, 2 CFR 200, FFR/RPPR)
• Sponsored-programs administration or contract negotiation
• Research compliance (IRB, IACUC, IBC, COI, export control)
• Core-facility/shared-resource operations
• Certifications such as CRA, CPRA, or CFRA are a plus.
• Proficient in using SharePoint, Box, DocuSign, Mendeley, EndNote, and ADP Workforce Now or UKG Pro.
• Strong analytical thinking and writing skills, with the ability to translate research administration workflows into structured task specifications.

• Task Completion Pay: Competitive, based on task quality (~$1, 150, $1, 450 per completed task, subject to change as the project evolves).
• Performance Bonus: Top performers receive a weekly bonus incentive in addition to their per task rate.
• Hourly Opportunity: Top performers may be invited to transition to an hourly compensation model based on sustained quality and throughput.