Jesse Clifton

Lead Researcher

Jesse heads the causes of conflict research group. His main research interest is methods for promoting cooperation among AI systems, using tools from game theory and machine learning. He is also a PhD student in statistics specializing in reinforcement learning.

Emery Cooper

Lead Researcher

Emery’s research interests include macrostrategy and implications of decision theory for cooperation. Previously, she received an MMath in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and studied at the MRC Biostatistics unit.

Stefan Torges

Director of Operations

Stefan is responsible for CLR's operational setup and the building of a community of researchers and professionals around CLR's mission and priorities. Previously, Stefan studied philosophy, neuroscience, and cognitive science at the University of Magdeburg.

Anni Leskelä

Researcher

Anni is part of the causes of conflict research group. Her research interests include the philosophy of simulations, AI policy and strategy, and the evolution of suffering. She studies philosophy and neuroscience at the University of Helsinki, and has previously published material on bioethics as well as blogged about topics related to AI risk and suffering-focused altruism.

Anthony DiGiovanni

Researcher

Anthony is part of the causes of conflict research group. His research focuses on formal frameworks for possible cooperation failures between AI agents, such as open-source game theory and evolutionary game theory. He received an MA in statistics from the University of Michigan, and has written on suffering-focused ethics.

Julian Stastny

Researcher

Julian does research in Cooperative AI and macrostrategy. His background is in Computer Science and Machine Learning. He is also a PhD student with the Max Planck Insitute for Biological Cybernetics, where he is advised by Prof. Peter Dayan.

Maxime Riché

Research Engineer

Maxime is part of CLR's causes of conflict research group. He focuses on providing technical support on deep learning for Cooperative AI research and on quantitative modelling. He holds a master's degree in physics from INSA Toulouse, worked briefly in nanotechnology and then in computer vision for Airbus.

Mia Taylor

Researcher

Mia is part of the causes of conflict research group. Her research interests include designing and modeling interventions to mitigate the harms of conflict. Previously, Mia studied mathematics and computer science at Harvey Mudd College.

Nicolas Macé

Researcher

Nicolas is part of the causes of conflict research group where his research focuses on the mechanisms behind cooperation and conflict, and their macrostrategic implications. Previously, he did a PhD and a postdoc in theoretical physics.

Paul Knott

Researcher

Paul’s research interests include AI risks in short and medium timelines, macrostrategy, and anything to do with parallel universes. He did a PhD in quantum physics at the University of Leeds, and has completed three postdocs researching at the interface of AI and quantum physics.

Tristan Cook

Researcher

Tristan's research interests include practical applications of anthropic reasoning, macrostrategy and decision theory. Previously, Tristan studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge and the University of Warwick.

Amrit Sidhu-Brar

Operations Lead

Amrit leads on operations at CLR, in areas such as payroll, compliance, HR, finances, and general administration. Previously he studied medieval languages at the University of Cambridge, and ran operations at a tech startup.

Harriet Patterson

Operations Associate

Harriet works with Amrit on the operations team. Before joining CLR, she read Music at the University of Cambridge, and also studied Mandarin Chinese at Tianjin Normal University in Tianjin, China.

Support staff and contractors

Matt Shoard, Office Consultant
Yuri Manca, Office Cook
Daniel Rüthemann, Design
Naoki Peter, IT

Current research fellows

Previous research fellows

2022: Alan Chan, David Udell, Hjalmar Wijk, James Faville, Mia Taylor, Nathaniel Sauerberg, Nisan Stiennon, Quratul Zainab, Sylvester Kollin. 2021: Adrià Garriga-Alonso, Gustavs Zilgalvis, Francis Priestland, Tom Shlomi, Euan McLean, Rory Svarc, Tristan Cook, Julia Karbing, Sara Haxhia, Nicolas Macé, Megan Kinniment-Williams, Lewis Hammond, Jack Koch, Francis Rhys Ward. 2020: Alex Lyzhov, Ali Merali, Anthony DiGiovanni, Emery Cooper, Eric Chen, Hadrien Pouget, Jia Yuan Loke, Julian Stastny, Michael Aird, Mojmír Stehlík.

Brian Tomasik

Brian is the author of over 100 pieces on his website, “Essays on Reducing Suffering," as well as several published papers. He has worked at Microsoft and FlyHomes as a data scientist and web developer. He studied computer science, mathematics, and statistics at Swarthmore College.

Jonas Vollmer

Jonas co-founded CLR in 2013 and used to lead it as its Co-Executive Director. In 2020, he left CLR to run Effective Altruism Funds at the Centre for Effective Altruism. He holds degrees in medicine and economics with a focus on public choice, health economics, and development economics. He played a key part in establishing the effective altruism community in continental Europe.

Daniel Kokotajlo

Daniel previously held the position of Lead Researcher at CLR, and now works at OpenAI on the policy/governance team. He mostly focuses on forecasting the future of artificial intelligence, so as to identify risks and prepare for them. However he continues his other research projects (e.g. commitment races, cooperation between AIs, surprising applications of decision theory) in collaboration with CLR colleagues. He also mentors CLR summer research fellows.

Caspar Oesterheld

Caspar Oesterheld is a PhD student in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is also the Assistant Director of the Foundations of Cooperative AI Lab. His work focuses on new foundational ideas at the intersection of AI/ML and game theory with a focus on achieving cooperation and avoiding conflict in general-sum strategic situations. He previously worked as a researcher at CLR from 2016 until 2018. He also mentors CLR Summer Research Fellows.

Olle Häggström

Olle is a Professor of Mathematical Statistics at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg and the author of “Here Be Dragons: Science, Technology and the Future of Humanity”. He is an associated researcher at the Stockholm-based Institute for Future Studies, and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Adrian Hutter

Adrian has a PhD in theoretical physics, having researched fault-tolerant quantum computation. He worked several years in algorithmic trading (earning to give) and is currently working on NLP at Google Zurich.

Ulla Wessels

Ulla is Professor of Practical Philosophy at Saarland University in Germany. She has published several books and numerous articles. Her research interests include consequentialism, welfarism, supererogation, moral psychology, and applied ethics (population ethics, bioethics).

David Pearce

David is author of "The Hedonistic Imperative," which calls for the use of biotechnology to phase out the biology of suffering throughout the living world. He co-founded the World Transhumanist Association (now called Humanity+), and he is currently Director at the Neuroethics Foundation.

Ole Martin Moen

Ole Martin Moen is a Professor of Ethics at Oslo Metropolitan University who works on how to think straight about thorny issues in applied ethics. He is Principal Investigator of "What should not be bought and sold?", a $1 million ethics project funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

Lucius Caviola

Lucius Caviola is a moral psychologist at Harvard University and a co-founder of CLR and its parent organization, the Effective Altruism Foundation. He received his PhD at the University of Oxford. In his research, he investigates how people give to charity, how they morally value animals, and how they think about the future of humanity.

Melinda Lohmann

Melinda F. Lohmann is an Assistant Professor of Business Law with a specialization in Information Law and is Director of the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen. In her research she deals with legal questions concerning artificial intelligence, robotics and self-driving cars.