Clinical Research Scientist

Position Title: Clinical Research Scientist, Mental Health AI
Location: San Francisco, CA (Onsite)
Salary: $140K - $185K + Equity
Visa: Yes (OPT, H1B transfers)
Relocation Assistance: Yes

About the Role

As individuals increasingly turn to AI for emotional support, health information, and guidance during moments of distress, ensuring these systems respond safely and ethically is critical. Many high-stakes risks emerge across multi-turn conversations—including missed signs of escalating distress, reinforcement of harmful beliefs, diagnostic overreach, and unhealthy emotional dependence.

Our client is seeking a Clinical Research Scientist to help lead and expand their groundbreaking work evaluating AI systems in mental health and clinically sensitive settings. In this role, you will work side-by-side with research teams and software engineers to build clinically grounded benchmarks, realistic multi-turn scenarios, scoring criteria, and validation studies.

This role is ideal for a Clinical Psychologist, Psychiatrist, or Clinical Scientist who wants to shape the future of AI safety and evaluation while maintaining active academic and clinical impact.

What You’ll Do

• Lead Clinical Evaluation Design: Define what safe and unsafe model behavior looks like across mental health and sensitive domains.

• Identify Failure Modes: Translate clinical risks into realistic multi-turn test scenarios and objective scoring criteria.

• Validate Methodology: Design validation studies including clinician reviews, inter-rater reliability assessments, and comparisons with real-world interaction data.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with engineers and technical researchers to implement clinical benchmarks at scale.

• Drive Research & Publishing: Analyze model behavior, publish peer-reviewed findings, and help shape the client's broader AI safety research agenda.

What We’re Looking For

• Education: PhD, PsyD, or MD in Clinical Psychology, Behavioral Science, Psychiatry, or a closely related field (Postdocs and early-career professionals welcome).

• Research Experience: 1+ years of clinical mental health research experience with a track record of peer-reviewed publications.

• Methodological Rigor: Strong background in empirical research, study design, quantitative/psychometric methods, and scientific writing.

• Digital Health/AI Context: Recent research or exposure to digital mental health, AI, or Large Language Models (LLMs) is highly preferred.

• Youth/Adolescent Focus: Experience with adolescent or youth mental health populations is a significant plus.

• Onsite Presence: Ability to work onsite in San Francisco 4–5 days per week.

What Our Client Offers

• High Impact & Ownership: Direct influence over the trajectory of mental health AI evaluation.

• Competitive Compensation: $140K–$185K base salary + meaningful equity + title flexibility based on experience.

• Relocation & Commute: Dedicated relocation package and transportation support.

• Comprehensive Perks: Full medical/dental coverage, unlimited PTO, and daily lunch, dinner, snacks, and coffee onsite.

• Visa Support: Open to visa transfers for qualified candidates.