Project summary

Athena is a relatively new research mentorship program fostering diversity of ideas in AI safety research. We aim to get more women and marginalized genders into technical research and offer the support needed to thrive in this space. This would be the 2nd iteration of the program.

Info from the first program: www.researchathena.org

What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?

A 2-month hybrid mentorship program for women looking to strengthen their research skills and network in technical and governance AI safety research beginning in January/February 2025. 

This includes 1-week in-person retreat in Uk/Europe followed by a 2-month remote mentorship by established researchers in the field, with networking and weekly research talks.

Two main goals of the program:
1. Help qualified women to feel more welcome in the field of technical AI safety research through support and community events

2. Connect mentees to researchers and provide project accountability, research network, concrete experience in the field, and space for future collaboration

These goals are achieved through the following specific actions:

1. Establish mentorship relationships through 1:1 weekly mentor 1 hr meetings

2. Deliver workshops and training sessions to enhance technical skills and research methodologies.

3. Setting up networking and social events to build a supportive community with global organizations 

4. Support specialists to debug culture and productivity issues with

5. Create a community of women to share experiences with and to create more visibility for women (hey a lot of women are in this field, this could be a place for me)

6. Scholarships for travel and lodging if participating in the in-person program, compute resources

7. Placement after program into research groups if interested for collaboration (paid or unpaid)

8. After program alumni page for continued involvement 

Program outcomes:

• Increase the number of women pursuing careers in AI alignment, which is currently a male-dominated field with a very specific culture that can be very unwelcoming. Help to shift the current culture to one that values diversity, inclusivity, and more qualified individuals.

• Provide mentees with valuable mentorship, support, and networking opportunities that can make all the difference in women's success and choice to stay in this field 

• Signal to the greater AI safety community of the importance of diversity and inclusion in AI alignment research and practice

• Diversity of perspective leads to more research activity and breadth, especially in this emerging field

How will this funding be used?

Funding goes towards participant travel fees, venue/food for retreat week, payment to operations staff, and compute/other research related needs for participants. 

Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?

• I set up and ran the first Athena AI safety research mentorship program recently with 12 mentors, 13 fellows, and 2 retreat fellows. We had over 25 participants for the in-person retreat in Oxford, which included Athena fellows and new speakers joining each day for a week. I was responsible for every part of this planning and execution. Past participants have gone on to participate in MATS and other AI safety research programs. You can see more information about this on the website: www.researchathena.org

• I participated in SERI MATS 3.0 as a research fellow, conducting independent AI safety research 

• I was an Operations Manager at the Atlas Fellowship in Berkeley

• I participated in the Mars College Artist Residency, where I organized workshops and community building initiatives

• I monitored educational program progress through research with the group, ‘Thaki’, which aids teachers and refugee students through educational programming

• Instructor and teaching assistant for programming courses with Digital Media Academy

• Lead Intern with the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago working with community initiatives and educational programming

• Research Fellow, Epistea Residency: collaboration with the Alignment of Complex Systems Research Group (ACS), specifically involving applications of active inference in AI

• 3 years of research work in a behavioral neuroscience lab at the University of Illinois

• Worked on brain simulation software Netpyne for 1 year with the Dura Bernal Lab NY

• Foresight neurotech Fellow 2024/WBE workshop attendee

• Led EEG studies with startup Jhourney, with the goal of uncovering neural correlates of Jhana meditation states

What other funding are you or your project getting?

We have not been granted funding for the 2nd iteration yet.