Team

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  Tristan Cook

  Managing Director

  Tristan leads CLR as Managing Director. After conducting research at CLR on s-risk macrostrategy, he led the organization's community building team before moving into his current leadership role. Previously, Tristan studied mathematics at the University of Warwick and the University of Cambridge.

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  Anthony DiGiovanni

  Researcher

  Anthony works on conceptual research at CLR. 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.

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  Daniel Tan

  Researcher

  Daniel's empirical research focuses on understanding and controlling how large language models generalize from training data. He has also worked on emergent misalignment and inoculation prompting. Previously, he studied Computer Science at Stanford University. See more about him here: https://dtch1997.github.io/

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  Maxime Riché

  Researcher

  Maxime is part of CLR's empirical research team. 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.

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  Niels Warncke

  Researcher

  Niels' research interests include alignment of LLM based systems. Previously, he worked as a machine learning engineer and studied Computer Science at Technische Universität Berlin.

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  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.

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  Santeri Tani

  Research Community Manager

  Santeri is CLR's research community manager. He has studied Computer Science at University of Helsinki. Previously, he was the Operative Director of the Finnish Center for Safe AI Tutke, and has worked in robotics, machine vision, and the non-profit sector.

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  Abraham Rowe

  Operations Advisor

  Abraham supports CLR's operations, having worked with us as a fractional COO throughout 2025. Abraham is COO at the Centre for the Governance of AI, and was previously the COO of Rethink Priorities. He also co-founded and was the first Executive Director of Wild Animal Initiative.

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  Amrit Sidhu-Brar

  Operations Advisor

  After four years in our operations team, Amrit stepped back to an advisory role as he transitions out of CLR and hands over to new leadership. Previously, he studied medieval languages at the University of Cambridge, and ran operations at a tech startup.

Support staff and contractors

2026 Summer Research Fellows

Previous Summer Research Fellows

Advisors

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  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.

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  Jonas Vollmer

  Jonas co-founded CLR in 2013 and used to lead it as its Co-Executive Director. He later co-founded and co-led Macroscopic Ventures. He holds degrees in medicine and economics with a focus on public choice, health economics, and development economics.

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  Stefan Torges

  Stefan was previously Director of Operations at CLR, and worked on building a community of researchers and professionals around CLR's mission and priorities. Stefan studied philosophy, neuroscience, and cognitive science at the University of Magdeburg.

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  Daniel Kokotajlo

  Daniel previously held the position of Lead Researcher at CLR. He mostly focuses on forecasting the future of artificial intelligence, so as to identify risks and prepare for them. He continues to collaborate with CLR colleagues on his research projects focusing on commitment races, cooperation between AIs, and surprising applications of decision theory. He also mentors CLR summer research fellows.

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  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 (FOCAL). 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, and he also mentors CLR Summer Research Fellows.

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  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.

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  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.

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  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).

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  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.

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  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.

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  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.

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  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.