Meet the Team
Christian Smith – Co-Director
Christian is Co-Director of MATS and Co-Founder of the London Initiative for Safe AI (LISA). Previously, he studied particle physics and pedagogy at Stanford University, worked in operations at multiple organizations, performed research at CERN, and organized educational programs like the Uncommon Sense Seminar.
Ryan Kidd – Co-Director
Ryan is Co-Director of MATS, a Co-Founder and Board Member of the London Initiative for Safe AI (LISA), a Manifund Regrantor, and advisor to AI Safety ANZ and Catalyze Impact. Previously, he completed a PhD in Physics at the University of Queensland (UQ), where he ran UQ’s Effective Altruism student group for three years, tutored physics courses, and volunteered in academic, mental health, and ally roles.
Team Leads
Laura Vaughan
Research Management Lead
Laura leads the Research Management Team at MATS, where she coordinates various program elements in Berkeley, coaches scholars to optimize program outcomes, and collaborates with Henry to support scholars and shape the London extension. A Thiel Fellow alum from 2017, Laura studied physics at the University of Waterloo and brings experience in ML model dataset creation and training, entrepreneurship, full-stack software engineering, and biomedical research.
Jana Guraziu
Community Manager
Jana is the Community Manager at MATS where she is a resource to the scholars for anything pertaining to their well-being. She works to build a safe, supportive, and nurturing environment where scholars can flourish as individuals and create friendships and connections. Jana studied biology at Harvard and biostatistics at UNC with experience in entrepreneurship and data analytics.
William Brewer
Operations Lead
William is an Operations Generalist at MATS where he organizes events and coordinates with service providers. William also works in prompt engineering and software development, with a focus on generative musical systems. He studied philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.
Research Management
McKenna Fitzgerald
Research Manager
McKenna is a Research Manager at MATS where she works with scholars to iterate on research, draft grant applications, and get the most out of MATS. Prior to MATS, she worked as the Deputy Director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute working on AI policy and ethics research. She is on the Board of Directors for Magnify Mentoring and holds a BA in Philosophy from UC, Berkeley (2018).
Juan Gil
Research Manager
Juan is a Research Manager at MATS where he coaches scholars and has led applicant selection and internal impact evaluations. Prior to MATS, Juan worked as a professional community builder for the Boston AI safety and Effective Altruism communities. He holds a B.S. in Mathematics with Computer Science from MIT (2020).
Carson Jones
Research Manager
Carson is a Research Manager at MATS where he does 1-1 coaching with scholars to help improve their productivity, research process, motivation, etc. He also maintains a private practice of coaching AI Safety researchers and effective altruists from organizations external to MATS. Prior to MATS, Carson worked at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute as their Office Manager.
Daniel Filan
Research Manager
Daniel is a research manager at MATS, where he works with scholars to help them get as much as they can out of the program. Just prior to joining MATS, he graduated with a PhD in Computer Science from UC Berkeley. On the side, he makes the AI X-risk Research Podcast.
Bryce Woodworth
Research Manager
Bryce is a Research Manager at MATS where he works to empower scholars and mentors to achieve better program outcomes. He particularly emphasizes strategic clarity and the building of foundational habits and skills. Prior to MATS, Bryce was a Software Engineer and a productivity coach, and has started EA and AI Safety groups in San Diego and Mountain View. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from UC San Diego.
London Team
Matthew Wearden
Research Manager London
Prior to MATS, Matthew has produced AI governance research and attended ARENA. He has been a part of the AI safety community for close to 6 years. Matthew worked in a project management capacity at Jane Street for almost 3 years on operations and corporate governance teams. He holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Cambridge (2020). Matthew co-leads the extension programme with Henry, working on strategy and processes. As part of this, he research manages scholars on multiple streams.
Henry Sleight
Research Manager / London Program Coordinator
Prior to MATS, Henry co-founded the Global Challenges Project, and worked at EA Oxford as Executive Director, where he did EA and x-risk community building for top university students. He holds an undergraduate degree in Classics from Oxford (2021). Henry coordinates and leads on design for the extension programs. On the side, he has managed Ethan Perez's independent research fellows in adversarial robustness, model organisms, and model self-prediction. Henry is also Chair of the advisory board of LISA.
Operations
Kali Richards
Operations Generalist
Kali is the Operations Generalist at MATS, where she closely interfaces with scholars, responds to emergent housing needs, and provides operational support. She holds a BA in political science from Columbia University, where she was president of Columbia EA and facilitated AI Governance fellowships for the Columbia AI Alignment Club.