Meet the team

Primary staff

Niel Bowerman

CEO

Before joining 80,000 Hours, Niel served as Assistant Director at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, and co-founded the Centre for Effective Altruism. He holds a doctorate in physics from Oxford, and served as a climate science advisor to the Office of the President of the Maldives.

Author archive
@NielBowerman
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Alex Holness-Tofts

Headhunting Lead

Alex joined 80,000 Hours after working as a talent scout at the AI Safety Institute and doing some applied AI safety research. Before that, he worked on building the effective altruism community, including founding a high school outreach program on existential risk and working at the Centre for Effective Altruism.

[email protected]

Alice De Gennaro

Business Operations Associate

Alice received a bachelor's degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and then went on to work as a research assistant at UCL. After engaging with 80,000 Hours' services, she made a career switch into operations work at high impact organisations. Outside work she loves to cook (and eat), practice yoga, and swim.

[email protected]

Arden Koehler

Interim Director of Web

Before coming to 80,000 Hours, Arden got a PhD in philosophy from New York University, with a specialisation in ethics and attitudes toward time.

[email protected]
Author archive

Balázs Rapi

Business Operations Specialist

Balázs holds a JD from a Hungarian law school and worked in law and consulting, supporting both public and private sector clients. He likes to spend his free time reading philosophy and practicing jiu-jitsu.

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Bella Forristal

Head of Marketing

Before joining 80,000 Hours, Bella worked in movement building at Effective Altruism Oxford, and was part of the co-founding team of the Global Challenges Project. She studied Classics & Philosophy at Oxford, with a particular interest in ethics and non-human animals.

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Brenton Mayer

COO

Brenton previously worked as a medical doctor before coming to 80,000 Hours in 2017. He co-founded the Run to Better Days and Effective Altruism Australia, non-profits promoting effective development aid for people living in extreme poverty. He takes table tennis way too seriously.

[email protected]

Callum Evans

People Operations Associate

Before joining 80,000 Hours, Callum worked on community building at Effective Altruism Oxford, and later co-founded Future Impact Group. He studied ancient history at Oxford, with an interest in civilisational collapse. Outside work, he enjoys chess, tennis, and Paolo Nutini.

[email protected]

Cody Fenwick

Research Analyst

Cody received a bachelor's degree in philosophy and studied ethics and public policy to earn his master's. He worked for years as a staff writer and editor at various news outlets and published on a range of topics, including politics, science, and media. Before joining 80,000 Hours, he was a happy recipient of 80,000 Hours' career advising.

[email protected]
@codytfenwick

Conor Barnes

Job Board Product Engineer

Conor joined 80,000 Hours as a software engineer and now works as the job board product engineer. Before working at 80,000 Hours, Conor worked at a startup and as a cataloguer at a library. When he's not programming, he's writing short stories and poetry.`

[email protected]
@ideopunk
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Daniel Dewey

Advisor

Daniel has been working in AI x-risk since 2011. Before joining 80,000 Hours, he was an independent AI alignment researcher, a program officer at Open Philanthropy, a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, a software engineer at Google, and an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University. A few favourites: Orthogonal (book), The Big Short (movie), Deadwood (TV), Hollow Knight (video game).

[email protected]

Eli Nathan

Incoming Head of Business Operations

Eli joined 80,000 Hours after working at the Centre for Effective Altruism, originally as the lead organiser for the EA Global conference series and then later as the Interim Head of Operations. Before that he was an operations assistant at Open Philanthropy, and came across EA in Oxford in 2016, where he was involved in various community building projects.

[email protected]

Huon Porteous

Advising Manager

Huon studied maths and philosophy at the Australian National University, where he was a core organiser for the university EA club. He then spent a year working in management consulting at a boutique firm before joining 80,000 Hours. In his spare time, he enjoys pole dancing, bouldering, and board games.

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Inés Fernandez

Business Operations Associate

Inés joined 80,000 Hours after completing her undergraduate degree in computational social science. During university, she interned at Deloitte and was a community manager for SERI.

[email protected]
@inesferhumi

Jenna Peters

Chief of Staff for the 1on1 Team

Before 80,000 Hours, Jenna worked as a project manager at the Centre for Effective Altruism and a Post-Baccalaureate Fellow at the Center for Global Women's Health Technologies at Duke University. Jenna graduated summa cum laude from Duke University with a BS in neuroscience.

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Jess Binksmith

Chief of Staff

Jess joined 80,000 Hours as an Operations Specialist and then moved into the Chief of Staff role. Before joining, she worked as the Athletic Union President at the University of St Andrews. She graduated with an MA in philosophy. Outside of work, she enjoys playing board games and badminton.

[email protected]

Jørgen Ljønes

Head of Business Operations

Jørgen cofounded Effective Altruism Norway and Gi Effektivt, a Norwegian donation platform for GiveWell-recommended charities, while studying. After graduating from NTNU with an MSc in Industrial Economics and Technology Management, he worked as a Community Builder at EA Norway, and later Managing Director of Gi Effektivt. He's interested in strategy games both on tabletops and on screens.

[email protected]

Laura González Salmerón

Advisor

Laura joined us after three years of working as a buy-side equity analyst. In a previous life, she was a PhD student at Oxford, where she researched representations of science and technology in fiction. Outside 80,000 Hours she writes, hosts a Spanish podcast, and hoards games she never has time to play.

[email protected]

Lauren Kuhns

Content Associate

Lauren did her PhD in Developmental Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focused on the effects of chronic substance use on motivational circuits of the brain. In her free time, she enjoys doing yoga, mountain hiking, reading fiction, and hanging out with dogs.

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Luisa Rodriguez

Podcast Host

Before joining us, Luisa was Will MacAskill's Chief of Staff at the Forethought Foundation. Before that, she conducted cause prioritisation research at Rethink Priorities and the Future of Humanity Institute, and cost-effectiveness analysis for nonprofit and government programs at ImpactMatters, Innovations for Poverty Action, and GiveWell.

[email protected]

Michelle Hutchinson

Director of the One-on-one Programme

Michelle holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oxford, where her thesis was on global priorities research. While completing that, she did the operational set-up of the Centre for Effective Altruism and then became Executive Director of Giving What We Can. She came to us fresh from setting up the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford.

[email protected]

Molly Webb

People Operations Associate

Before joining 80k, Molly founded and ran a multi-location music school based in California specialising in evidence-based voice lessons and employing a network of teachers trained in her curriculum. She holds a BA from Columbia University in English and a variety of advanced certifications in voice science.

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Nik Mastroddi

Marketer

After graduating in Egyptology from the University of Cambridge, Nik worked as a freelance designer for non-profit and cultural projects before joining the student recruitment team in Graduate Admissions at the University of Oxford. She worked in marketing and outreach at Oxford for over a decade before coming to 80,000 Hours.

[email protected]

Rob Wiblin

Director of Podcasting

Rob won a scholarship to study genetics and economics at the Australian National University, graduating top of his class and being named Young Alumnus of the Year in 2015. He worked as a research economist in various Australian Government agencies, before moving to the UK to work at the Centre for Effective Altruism, where he was Research Director and then Executive Director, before moving to 80,000 Hours. He was also a founding board member of Animal Charity Evaluators and a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers Community.

Author archive
@robertwiblin
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Roman Duda

Software Engineer

Roman did a fully-funded Masters in Philosophy at Oxford, during which he also consulted for a major energy company on their business strategy, whilst also studying Mandarin Chinese. With a strong interest in Quantified Self, he has worked at the start-ups Memrise and Self Spark.

[email protected]
Author archive

Sam Haskell

Business Operations Specialist

Before joining 80,000 Hours, Sam worked in various roles at charities and educational institutions, most recently as a Systems Analyst. He holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge. Outside of work, he enjoys philosophy, reading, and art.

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Sashika Coxhead

Head of People Operations

Before working at 80,000 Hours, Sash was a junior doctor in London. She graduated from King's College London in 2018, where she received multiple awards for academic excellence and did research on HIV that was published in Nature Microbiology.

[email protected]

Sudhanshu Kasewa

Advisor

Sudhanshu has been a consultant with giant multinationals, a corporate soft-skills trainer, a research engineer at a startup, and a PhD student in robotics. He's worked in a variety of contexts including manufacturing, financial services, and healthcare, and has degrees in mathematics, management, and machine learning.

[email protected]
@sudan_shoe

Valerie Richmond

Software Engineer

Valerie received degrees in computer science from MIT, where she researched self-driving car safety models. She then worked on software to speed up US clinical trials. She's interested in ethics, weightlifting, dogs, and the outdoors.

[email protected]

Zac Richardson

Systems Analyst

Before coming to 80,000 Hours, Zac studied Social and Cultural Psychology at LSE where he researched public perceptions of AI risk and democratic decision-making. He's worked in research management, tutored philosophy, and marketed spices. Outside work Zac enjoys loud music and spicy food.

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Ziya Huang

People Operations Specialist

Ziya founded several social-impact projects before joining 80,000 Hours. She has a master's in development studies from SOAS and has a keen interest in stinky food across the world.

[email protected]

Founders

Benjamin Todd

President and Co-founder

Ben managed 80,000 Hours while it grew from a lecture, to a student society, to the organisation it is today. Before 80,000 Hours, he was the first undergraduate to intern as an analyst at a top investment fund. He has a 1st from Oxford in Physics and Philosophy, has published in Climate Physics, once kick-boxed for Oxford, and speaks Chinese, badly.

Author archive
@ben_j_todd
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Will MacAskill

Co-founder

Will is an associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oxford, focusing on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism, the foundations of effective altruism, and the ethics of future generations. He co-founded the nonprofits Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism, and 80,000 Hours. He is the author of Doing Good Better, Moral Uncertainty, and What We Owe The Future, which we discussed with him on our podcast.

@willmacaskill
Homepage

Freelancers

Ben Cordell

Audio Engineering Lead

Ben is an electronic music artist and audio engineer. He received both his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, focusing on double bass, music technology, and audio engineering. When he's not working, Ben loves making music and playing with his two cats.

Katy Moore

Podcast Assistant

Katy holds a BA in History from Oregon State University and a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Alberta. Previously she's worked as a plain language specialist and content coordinator in the areas of public legal information and mental health services. When she's not working, you can find her chasing warm weather to go on nature hikes and canoe trips with her slightly neurotic dog.

[email protected]

Effective Ventures Operations

80,000 hours is a project of the Effective Ventures group. We receive ops support from many staff within the EV Operations team. You can learn more about members of the team on their website.

Our Trustees

Patrick Gruban

Trustee - EVF UK

Patrick has been Co-Director of EA Germany since 2022, and is Managing Director of a textile company he co-founded in 2012. He's been an entrepreneur since the mid-1990s, starting his first company for online community software after finishing school. Later, he started a company that developed software for banks.

Lincoln Quirk

Trustee - EVF UK

Lincoln is co-founder and head of product at Wave, which builds mobile money to create low-cost digital financial infrastructure in Africa. Before that, he founded Sendwave to lower the cost of international remittances. Lincoln has pledged to give 10% of his personal proceeds from his companies to charity.

Eli Rose

Trustee - EVF UK

Eli is a Senior Programme Associate at Open Philanthropy, focusing on Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building. Previously, he was Director of Engineering at Mentor Collective, a Boston educational technology company. He graduated in 2015 from Oberlin College, where he studied computer science and creative writing.

Johnstuart Winchell

Trustee - EVF US

Johnstuart is the founder of Good Impressions, which provides free marketing services to effective nonprofits. Previously, he worked in strategy and operations at Google, in management consulting at Boston Consulting Group, and as a professional ballet dancer in Texas and Colorado.

Anna Weldon

Trustee - EVF US

Anna is the Director of Internal Operations at Open Philanthropy, where she leads teams that focus on Business Operations, People Operations, IT, Immigration, and Recruiting. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, she served as Director of Human Resources at Buffalo Exchange, guiding the organisation on manager development, change management, and organisational restructuring. Anna holds certifications from the Society for Human Resource Management and Project Management Institute and graduated from Shimer College in 2006 with a BA in Philosophy.

Zach Robinson

Trustee - EVF US

Zach is the Interim CEO of EVF US. Previously, he was Chief of Staff at Open Philanthropy, where he managed comms and grantmaking teams, helped set org-wide policies, and worked to identify new Global Health and Wellbeing cause areas for Open Philanthropy, among other things. Prior to his work at Open Philanthropy, he was the director of product and strategy for startup Ivy Research Council and worked as a consultant at Bain and Company.

Our External Advisors

These are some of the external experts we consult in our research and decision-making processes.

Dr Greg Lewis

External Advisor

Greg is an independent researcher who focuses on biorisk and superforecasting for Good Judgement Inc. He previously worked at the Future of Humanity Institute and has a PhD in Mathematical Biology from the University of Oxford. He has guest-written several articles on our site about biorisk and medical careers and consulted on much of our biorisk and COVID-19 related work.

Dr Rohin Shah

External Advisor

Rohin co-leads the AI alignment team at Google DeepMind. He previously earned a PhD in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, where he studied at the Center for Human Compatible AI. He's written widely about alignment in his newsletter, and has previously spoken on our podcast.

Dr Toby Ord

External Advisor

Toby is a Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at Oxford University, an expert in global prioritisation, and has been repeatedly covered in the international media for promoting cost-effective philanthropy and founding Giving What We Can. He is the author of The Precipice, which he discussed on our podcast.

Prof. Hilary Greaves

External Advisor

Hilary is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Director of the Global Priorities Institute. Her research focuses on issues of global priorisation, foundational issues in consequentialism, interpersonal aggregation, population ethics, moral uncertainty, and the interface between ethics and economics. She has been interviewed about these topics on our podcast, and joined our governing board in 2019.

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Peter Hartree

External Advisor

Peter is CEO of TYPE III AUDIO. He previously worked in various roles at 80,000 Hours.

@peterhartree
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Alex Lawsen

External Advisor

Alex works as a Senior Program Associate on AI Governance at Open Philanthropy. He previously worked on the 1-1 team at 80,000 Hours.

Author archive
@lxrjl