Astronomy & Astrophysics Expert — Advanced AI Research & Evaluation Initiative (Remote, Freelance)

Innodata (NASDAQ: INOD) is a leading data engineering company. With more than 2,000 customers and operations in 13 cities around the world, we are an AI technology solutions provider-of-choice for 4 out of 5 of the world’s biggest technology companies, as well as leading companies across financial services, insurance, technology, law, and medicine.

By combining advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) technologies, a global workforce of subject matter experts, and a high-security infrastructure, we’re helping usher in the promise of AI. Innodata offers a powerful combination of both digital data solutions and easy-to-use, high-quality platforms.

Our global workforce includes over 5,000 employees in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Israel and Germany.

Remote, Worldwide · Flexible, Async · No AI/ML background required

Role & Scope

We are seeking established academics, researchers, and industry experts in Astrophysics, Astronomy, Cosmology, Theoretical and Observational Astrophysics, Stellar and Galactic Astrophysics, and Computational Astrophysics to contribute subject-matter expertise to an advanced AI research and evaluation initiative. This engagement is designed for professionals with substantial research depth who can bring expert judgment, research perspective, and domain-level rigor to the evaluation of AI systems.

The role is advisory and research-oriented — the emphasis is on your judgment and expertise, not routine production work.

What the engagement may involve

• Assessing the accuracy, depth, reasoning, and scholarly/technical quality of AI-generated outputs in astronomy and astrophysics
• Identifying nuances, gaps, limitations, and areas where AI-generated content requires refinement
• Providing expert perspective on complex, domain-specific research problems
• Advising on what constitutes a credible, technically sound, research-quality response in your subfield
• Contributing to the development of rigorous evaluation frameworks and methodologies
• Bringing current research and established principles into the evaluation of advanced AI capabilities

How this fits into AI development (plain terms)

This work feeds directly into RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) — your expert judgment becomes the signal that teaches AI models to reason correctly in astrophysics. When you flag an error, correct a derivation, or judge one output more rigorous than another, that judgment shapes what the model learns next. You’re the domain authority in the loop, not the engineer building it.

Ideal background

• Professors, senior academics, PhD researchers, or postdoctoral scholars in astronomy/astrophysics
• Senior industry professionals or technical specialists in related computational/observational work
• A record of publications, research contributions, or demonstrated technical authority in the field
• No machine learning, coding, or AI experience necessary

Why researchers take this on

• Flexible, remote freelance engagement — structured to complement, not compete with, your existing academic or professional commitments
• Hourly compensation, async scheduling, no fixed hours
• High-leverage, low-time-commitment: your expert review directly shapes frontier AI capability in your field

“Please note that the organization follows a strict no-fee recruitment policy and does not request any payment from candidates at any stage of the hiring process, including through third-party agencies or consultants. Candidates are advised to immediately report any such payment requests in connection with employment opportunities, as they are unauthorized and fraudulent.”