Information for Center for AI Safety

Table of contents

Basic information

Item Value
Country United States
YouTube username @centerforaisafety2291
Twitter username @ai_risks
Website https://www.safe.ai/
Team page https://safe.ai/about
Launch date 2022-01-01
Last recorded date when we made major data updates for this org 2025-11-18
Donations List Website (data still preliminary)

Positions count by year

Hover over a name to see the position and date range. This table only includes positions where at least the start date is known. The positions count can count the same person multiple times if they held different positions; similarly, the list of staff may include the same person multiple times if they held more than one position during a single year. For each year, a person is included if they were at the organization for any part of the year; this means the actual staff count at any point during the year can be lower (or higher, if some staff held multiple positions in a single year).

Year Positions count Researchers General staff Associates Board members Advisors
2022 21 Alex Pan, Andy Zou, Dan Hendrycks, David Lambert, Marc Carauleanu, Max Kaufmann, Michael Chen, Nathaniel Li, Scott Emmons, Steven Basart, Thomas Woodside, Thomas Woodside Anders Edson, Corin Katzke, Joshua Clymer, Kevin Liu, Madhav Malhotra, Oliver Zhang, Sidney Hough, Suryansh Mehta Rune Kvist
2023 29 Aidan O'Gara, Andy Zou, Ayham Al-Saffar, Dan Hendrycks, David Lambert, Jun Shern Chan, Long Phan, Michael Chen, Nathaniel Li, Nathaniel Li, Scott Emmons, Steven Basart, Steven Basart, Thomas Woodside, Xuwang Yin, Zifan Wang Anders Edson, Ayush Panda, Corin Katzke, David Bau, Isabelle Barrass, Madhav Malhotra, Oliver Zhang, Oliver Zhang, Rebecca Rothwell, Sidney Hough, Suryansh Mehta, Suryansh Mehta Rune Kvist
2024 17 Dan Hendrycks, David Lambert, Long Phan, Mantas Mazeika, Nathaniel Li, Steven Basart, Xuwang Yin Corin Katzke, Corin Katzke, Isabelle Barrass, Oliver Zhang, Oliver Zhang, Oliver Zhang, Rebecca Rothwell, Suryansh Mehta Rune Kvist Suryansh Mehta
2025 10 Dan Hendrycks, Long Phan, Mantas Mazeika, Nathaniel Li, Steven Basart, Xuwang Yin Corin Katzke, Josue Estrada, Oliver Zhang Rune Kvist
2026 8 Dan Hendrycks, Long Phan, Mantas Mazeika, Steven Basart Corin Katzke, Josue Estrada, Oliver Zhang Rune Kvist

Number of full-time staff at the beginning each year

The following table lists some dates and people who were at the organization on the given date (namely, the start of the year). The table may not list every person who worked for the organization (e.g. they could have joined and left in the middle of a single year). This table excludes associates, interns, advisors, and board members.

Date Staff count Staff
2022-01-01 1 Thomas Woodside
2023-01-01 16 Aidan O'Gara, Anders Edson, Andy Zou, Corin Katzke, Dan Hendrycks, David Lambert, Madhav Malhotra, Michael Chen, Nathaniel Li, Oliver Zhang, Scott Emmons, Sidney Hough, Steven Basart, Suryansh Mehta, Thomas Woodside, Xuwang Yin
2024-01-01 12 Corin Katzke, Dan Hendrycks, David Lambert, Isabelle Barrass, Long Phan, Nathaniel Li, Oliver Zhang, Oliver Zhang, Rebecca Rothwell, Steven Basart, Suryansh Mehta, Xuwang Yin
2025-01-01 8 Corin Katzke, Dan Hendrycks, Long Phan, Mantas Mazeika, Nathaniel Li, Oliver Zhang, Steven Basart, Xuwang Yin
2026-01-01 7 Corin Katzke, Dan Hendrycks, Josue Estrada, Long Phan, Mantas Mazeika, Oliver Zhang, Steven Basart

Full history of additions and subtractions

This table shows the full change history of positions. Each row corresponds to at least one addition or removal of a position. Additions are in green and subtractions are in red. If a position name changed, it is listed simultaneously as an addition (of the new name) and removal (of the old name) and colored yellow. Additionally there are faded variants of each color for visited links.

Date Number of positions Number of positions added Number of positions removed Positions added Positions removed
2022-01-01 1 1 0 Thomas Woodside
2022-03-01 2 1 0 Kevin Liu
2022-04-01 4 2 0 Oliver Zhang, Rune Kvist
2022-05-01 5 1 0 Steven Basart
2022-06-01 6 1 0 Madhav Malhotra
2022-07-01 8 3 -1 Alex Pan, Anders Edson, Joshua Clymer Kevin Liu
2022-08-01 8 2 -2 Nathaniel Li, Thomas Woodside Alex Pan, Thomas Woodside
2022-08-13 13 5 0 Andy Zou, Dan Hendrycks, Michael Chen, Scott Emmons, Sidney Hough
2022-09-01 15 2 0 David Lambert, Max Kaufmann
2022-11-01 16 1 0 Marc Carauleanu
2022-12-01 16 2 -2 Corin Katzke, Suryansh Mehta Joshua Clymer, Marc Carauleanu
2023-01-01 18 3 -1 Aidan O'Gara, Jun Shern Chan, Xuwang Yin Max Kaufmann
2023-02-01 19 1 0 Ayham Al-Saffar
2023-03-01 20 2 -1 Long Phan, Steven Basart Steven Basart
2023-03-15 16 0 -4 Andy Zou, Michael Chen, Scott Emmons, Sidney Hough
2023-03-26 17 1 0 David Bau
2023-04-01 18 1 0 Zifan Wang
2023-05-01 19 3 -2 Isabelle Barrass, Nathaniel Li, Suryansh Mehta Nathaniel Li, Suryansh Mehta
2023-06-01 21 2 0 Ayush Panda, Rebecca Rothwell
2023-07-01 22 1 0 Oliver Zhang
2023-08-01 18 0 -4 Anders Edson, Ayham Al-Saffar, Ayush Panda, Thomas Woodside
2023-09-01 17 0 -1 Madhav Malhotra
2023-11-01 16 0 -1 Zifan Wang
2023-12-01 15 0 -1 Jun Shern Chan
2023-12-31 14 0 -1 David Bau
2024-01-01 13 0 -1 Aidan O'Gara
2024-03-01 12 0 -1 Oliver Zhang
2024-04-01 11 0 -1 Rebecca Rothwell
2024-04-30 10 0 -1 Corin Katzke
2024-05-01 11 1 0 Corin Katzke
2024-06-01 11 1 -1 Suryansh Mehta Suryansh Mehta
2024-09-01 11 1 -1 Mantas Mazeika David Lambert
2024-11-01 11 1 -1 Oliver Zhang Oliver Zhang
2024-12-01 10 0 -1 Suryansh Mehta
2025-01-01 9 0 -1 Isabelle Barrass
2025-01-31 8 0 -1 Nathaniel Li
2025-02-01 9 1 0 Josue Estrada
2025-04-01 8 0 -1 Xuwang Yin

List of people (40 positions)

Person Title Start date End date AI safety relation Subject Employment type Source Notes
Dan Hendrycks Executive and Research Director 2022-08-13 [1], [2], [3]
Oliver Zhang Managing Director 2024-11-01 full-time [2], [4]
Josue Estrada Chief Operating Officer 2025-02-01 full-time [5], [2]
Corin Katzke Lead Writer 2024-05-01 part-time [6]
Long Phan Research Engineer 2023-03-01 full-time [7]
Mantas Mazeika Research Scientist 2024-09-01 full-time [8]
Rune Kvist Board Member 2022-04-01 board member [9]
Steven Basart Manager of Research and Development 2023-03-01 full-time [10]
Oliver Zhang Chief of Staff 2023-07-01 2024-11-01 full-time [4]
Oliver Zhang Co-founder and Project Manager 2022-04-01 2024-03-01 full-time [4]
Aidan O'Gara Research Engineer 2023-01-01 2024-01-01 intern [11]
Anders Edson Project Manager 2022-07-01 2023-08-01 full-time [12], [1]
Thomas Woodside Researcher & Project Manager 2022-01-01 2022-08-01 full-time [1], [13] At the newly established Center for AI Safety, he was the first employee and spent full time working on research and managing projects. Some of his responsibilities included co-writing the Pragmatic AI Safety research agenda, overseeing the Machine Learning Safety Scholars program, and managing communications. He would be continuing with these duties on a part-time basis starting in mid-August 2022.
Suryansh Mehta AI Policy Advisor 2024-06-01 2024-12-01 contractor [14] Occasional work with Dan Hendrycks on urgent national-security AI projects; freelance role.
Suryansh Mehta Writer, Editor, and Manager 2023-05-01 2024-06-01 full-time [14] Managed 3–5 reports; delivered projects; edited 500+ pages of the textbook "Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society".
Suryansh Mehta Technical Writer 2022-12-01 2023-05-01 full-time [14] Full-time contracting while completing graduate degree; contributed to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society textbook.
Joshua Clymer Project Manager 2022-07-01 2022-12-01 [1], [15]
Jun Shern Chan Research Intern 2023-01-01 2023-12-01 intern [1], [16], [17]
Alex Pan Research Intern 2022-07-01 2022-08-01 intern [18]
Ayush Panda Teaching Assistant 2023-06-01 2023-08-01 part-time [19]
Ayham Al-Saffar AI Safety Research Course Facilitator 2023-02-01 2023-08-01 part-time [20]
David Bau Collaborator 2023-03-26 2023-12-31 [21], [22]
David Lambert Research and Writing Consultant 2022-09-01 2024-09-01 contractor [23]
Isabelle Barrass Project Manager 2023-05-01 2025-01-01 [24]
Marc Carauleanu Student Researcher 2022-11-01 2022-12-01 full-time [25]
Madhav Malhotra Teaching Assistant 2022-06-01 2023-09-01 [26] Remote
Max Kaufmann Research Assistant 2022-09-01 2023-01-01 full-time [27] Continuing work on adversarial robustness in the image classification setting.
Steven Basart Research Engineer 2022-05-01 2023-03-01 full-time [10], [1]
Thomas Woodside Project Manager & Research Collaborator 2022-08-01 2023-08-01 part-time [1], [13] He would continue work part time while in school. Working on a research project involving Trojan detection in large language models.
Kevin Liu Project Manager 2022-03-01 2022-07-01 [1], [28]
Corin Katzke Writer 2022-12-01 2024-04-30 contractor [6] Contributing writer for the AI Safety Newsletter; contributed to *An Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society*. Remote. Contract role.
Nathaniel Li Research Engineer 2023-05-01 2025-01-31 full-time [29] Research co-lead on Humanity's Last Exam and WMDP; contributed to biosecurity evaluations for virology protocol troubleshooting.
Nathaniel Li Undergraduate Researcher 2022-08-01 2023-05-01 [29]
Rebecca Rothwell Lead Editor 2023-06-01 2024-04-01 [30]
Zifan Wang Research Engineer 2023-04-01 2023-11-01 [31]
Xuwang Yin Research Engineer 2023-01-01 2025-04-01 intern [32]
Sidney Hough Project Manager 2022-08-13 2023-03-15 [1], [33]
Andy Zou Project Manager & Research Collaborator 2022-08-13 2023-03-15 [1], [33]
Scott Emmons Research Collaborator 2022-08-13 2023-03-15 [1], [33]
Michael Chen Research Collaborator 2022-08-13 2023-03-15 [1], [33]

Products (0 products)

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Organization documents (0 documents)

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