◆ Mathematics

What a research scientist math
really does.

20 tasks, each one witnessed by the sources that watched the job — and behind every one, a prompt you can use tonight.

20evidenced tasks
55,850in the US (2025)
$98,920median pay / year
8systems it runs on
See the 20 tasks ↓Open in the atlasThe full career map →
This is what one task looks like here
Gather and analyse biological data
Gather the raw sequencing reads and phenotype tables from the lab shar…3 sources agree

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The work, task by task

20 tasks
Hands on the work16
Gather and analyse biological data+
Gather the raw sequencing reads and phenotype tables from the lab shared drive, clean and normalise the biological measurements, run the agreed statistical tests, produce a one-page summary of findings and data quality by Wednesday for the PI and lab meeting.
escojdonet3 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Build and query biological databases+
Design and populate the species-variant database from the acquired CSVs, implement unique keys and indexes for fast queries, create three example queries to retrieve variants by gene, sample and collection date, and hand over schema documentation to the database admin by Friday.
escojdonet3 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Create or modify web-based bioinformatics tools.+
Extend the web tool to add a batch upload endpoint and a results page that visualises expression heatmaps, write the backend handler and front-end template, test with the lab's sample dataset and open a pull request for review before Thursday's sprint demo.
escojdonet3 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Assist scientists in various fields including biotechnology and pharmaceutics+
Prepare a methods brief and a reproducible pipeline for the biotech collaborators: outline sample inclusion criteria, the analytical steps, expected outputs and a small test dataset they can run, then send it to Dr. Chen and the project manager ahead of Friday's coordination call.
escoonet2 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Consult with researchers to analyze problems, recommend technology-based solutions, or determine computational strategies.+
Meet with Jenna and Arjun to review their nonlinear optimization bottleneck, propose two computation strategies with estimated runtimes and resource needs, and draft an experiment plan that I can implement and instrument next week to compare convergence and accuracy.
onet
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Confer with departments, such as marketing, business development, or operations, to coordinate product development or improvement.+
Convene a one‑hour working session with product, marketing, and operations to present our analytic prototype for adaptive pricing, collect their product constraints and launch metrics, and produce a prioritized list of three model changes that engineering must build for the next sprint.
onet
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Prepare summary statistics of information regarding human genomes.+
Produce summary statistics for the 1000‑sample whole‑genome cohort: allele frequency tables, variant counts per chromosome, and PCA plots, include a two‑paragraph methods note on filtering, and deposit the tables with metadata so collaborators can reanalyse them.
onet
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Mine diverse biological data types+
Assemble an integrated dataset combining expression, methylation, and clinical records, run exploratory clustering to highlight three candidate biomarker groups, document preprocessing steps and data provenance, and hand the cleaned dataset to the biology team for validation.
jd
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Grow the practice3
Watch and assess1

What the work runs on

named inside the evidenced tasks
5 tasksIBM SPSS Statisticsperforms the statistical tests and generates summary tables and charts for the cleaned biological measurements
5 tasksGitHubstore code, track manuscript drafts, and attach data releases for reproducibility
3 tasksGittracks schema and query changes and stores the database documentation and deployment scripts
2 tasksDjangoprovides the web framework to implement the backend handler, templates and form handling for the bioinformatics tool
2 tasksApache Hadoophandles large-scale storage and mapping needs informing the data model for distributed multi-omics datasets
2 tasksBashorchestrates the reproducible pipeline and test dataset commands for collaborators to run locally
1 taskC++prototype the high‑performance solver implementations used to measure runtimes and accuracy
1 taskDockerdefine containerized components for reproducible deployment of the automated pipelines in the proposed plan
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The same task, four heights

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ExecuteDo today's task, with fewer mistakesyou are here → ImproveMake it easy for the next person to acceptin the atlas → DecideWork out the right move when it is unclearin the atlas → BecomeLearn the pattern so it stops coming backin the atlas →

Can AI actually do this job?

the honest answer

It can

where it genuinely helps
  • Explain the theory behind the work
  • Draft, tidy and structure your writing
  • Rehearse a hard conversation before you have it
  • Build a study plan that fits your gaps

It cannot

where it stops, completely
  • Be in the room where a research scientist math actually works
  • Carry the responsibility when the call is wrong — that weight stays yours
  • Notice what no one wrote down: the hesitation, the thing left unsaid
  • Live with the outcome

What the work pays

two countries, two different measures

United States

this exact occupation · BLS 2025
  • $98,920 a year — the middle: half earn more, half earn less
  • The lowest tenth earn near $60,430; the top tenth near $168,010
  • 55,850 people employed in this occupation

India

the occupation GROUP, not this job · PLFS via ILOSTAT 2025
  • ₹38,298 a month — the median for Professionals, the group this work sits in
  • India publishes pay by broad occupation group, so this covers many jobs besides this one. It is a shape, not a salary.
read this carefullyThese two numbers are not comparable and must not be converted into each other. One is a yearly figure for this job alone; the other is a monthly figure for a whole family of jobs. What travels between them is the pattern, not the amount: experience lifts pay almost everywhere.

Where the evidence lives

open any of it yourself
O*NETThe US Department of Labor's own record of this job10 of these tasks ESCOThe European skills and occupations register11 of these tasks Job descriptionsReal postings, in the wild7 of these tasks US Bureau of Labor StatisticsPay and employment, by occupation2025 figures UK NOS COGBIO-05Carry out computational analysis of life science-related datanational standard UK NOS COGBIO-04Develop algorithms and pipelines for the analysis of life science datanational standard

Close to this work

12 nearby
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Questions people actually ask

You spend part of the day writing code and part in meetings. Mornings often run analyses: querying databases, running Hadoop jobs, or testing C++ or Python scripts that mine genomic data.

Expect Git and GitHub for version control, Docker for reproducible environments, Bash for scripting, and tools like Apache Hadoop for large-scale data processing. Teams may use Django to build web tools and IBM SPSS Statistics for some summary statistics.

Treat AI as an assistant: run models locally or in approved cloud environments, never upload raw human-genome data to public services. Document training data, keep provenance with Git, and follow institutional privacy rules and consent forms.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, 2025), there were 55,850 employed and the median pay was $98,920 per year. The lowest tenth earned $60,430 and the top tenth $168,010.

Learn basic programming (Python, C++), Unix shell (Bash), and Git for version control. Practice building small web tools with Django and containerising projects with Docker. Try a genomics dataset and use Hadoop or pandas to process it.

A research scientist (math) focuses on mathematical models and algorithm development for biological questions; you may design new analyses and publish results. A data scientist often focuses on product metrics and business problems, while bioinformaticians often focus more on pipelines and wet-lab integration.