Child & Adolescent Mental Health Clinical Advisor (AI Safety Benchmark Project)

We are partnering with a leading AI research organisation to develop a clinician-informed benchmark for evaluating how AI companion chatbots respond to adolescents experiencing mental health challenges. As AI companions become increasingly common sources of emotional support, there is a growing need for rigorous, clinically grounded evaluation of how these systems handle sensitive situations such as suicide risk, therapeutic guidance, and emotional dependency. We're seeking experienced Child & Adolescent Psychiatrists, Clinical Psychologists, and Mental Health Researchers to contribute their expertise in designing realistic clinical scenarios and evaluation standards for this important AI safety initiative.

Responsibilities

• Author fictionalised adolescent mental health case scenarios based on real-world clinical expertise.

• Review scenarios for clinical realism, developmental appropriateness, and ethical considerations.

• Help develop and refine clinician-informed evaluation rubrics for AI chatbot responses.

• Review a subset of AI-generated conversations and provide expert judgment to calibrate automated evaluation systems.

• Advise on best practices for assessing AI behaviour across key mental health domains, including:

  • Suicide & Self-Harm (risk recognition, safety planning, crisis referral)

  • Medical & Therapeutic Impersonation (diagnosis, treatment advice, discouraging professional care)

  • Parasocial Attachment & Anthropomorphism (claims of consciousness, emotional dependency, discouraging trusted relationships)

Requirements

We are looking for clinicians and researchers with substantial expertise in child and adolescent mental health.

Required Qualifications

• MD, DO, PhD, PsyD, or equivalent qualification in Psychiatry, Psychology, or a related mental health field.

• Clinical or research experience focused on children and adolescents.

• Expertise in one or more of the following:

  • Suicide prevention

  • Self-harm assessment

  • Child & adolescent psychiatry

  • Clinical child psychology

  • Digital mental health

  • Evidence-based therapies such as DBT or CBT

• Strong written communication skills and ability to provide structured clinical feedback.

• Comfortable reviewing fictional clinical scenarios and evaluating AI-generated conversations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience conducting suicide risk assessments or crisis intervention.

• Academic or published research in adolescent mental health, suicide prevention, or digital therapeutics.

• Experience developing clinical guidelines, assessment frameworks, or educational materials.

• Prior work involving AI, digital health technologies, or mental health product evaluation.

• Experience supervising trainees or participating in multidisciplinary clinical teams.

Role Details

• Commitment: Approximately 10–15 hours per week.

• Compensation: $80 - $150 USD per hour

Why Join?

• Help shape the future of safe AI systems for adolescents.

• Apply your clinical expertise to one of the most important emerging questions in AI safety and digital mental health.

• Collaborate with researchers developing rigorous evaluation standards for AI companion chatbots.

• Contribute to work that may influence future AI research, independent benchmarking, and responsible deployment of conversational AI.

We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request.

Contract and Payment Terms

• You will be engaged as an independent contractor.
• This is a fully remote role that can be completed on your own schedule.
• Projects can be extended, shortened, or concluded early depending on needs and performance.
• Your work at Mercor will not involve access to confidential or proprietary information from any employer, client, or institution.
• Payments are weekly on Stripe or Wise based on services rendered.
• Please note: We are unable to support H1-B or STEM OPT candidates at this time.

About Mercor

Mercor partners with leading AI labs and enterprises to train frontier models using human expertise. You will work on projects that focus on training and enhancing AI systems. You will be paid competitively, collaborate with leading researchers, and help shape the next generation of AI systems in your area of expertise.