Meet the team
Table of Contents
Primary staff
Brenton Mayer
Interim CEO (previously, Director of Internal Systems)
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.
Benjamin Todd
President & 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.
Abigail Hoskin
Advisor
Abigail has a master's in neuroscience from Oxford University and a PhD in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton University. Her research focused on memory, multitasking, cognitive control, and mental health, as well as building computational models of cognition. She is also participating in the Princeton Computer Science department's first ever graduate seminar on AI Alignment. In her spare time, she enjoys training her multimodal multitasking neural networks (two cute daughters).
Anemone Franz
Advisor
Anemone previously worked at Alvea, a biotech startup, as a clinical trial physician focusing on novel COVID-19 vaccine candidates and other medical countermeasures. During medical school, Anemone spent time at the Swiss Institute for Tropical and Public Health, managed a support program for patients with tuberculosis, and conducted research on human physiology in space. Her doctoral research focused on parasitic infections in street children and orphans in Tanzania.
Arden Koehler
Website Director
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.
Balázs Rapi
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.
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.
Benjamin Hilton
Research Analyst
Benjamin is a former civil servant, having worked as a policy adviser across the UK government in the Cabinet Office, Treasury and Department for International Trade. He has master’s degrees in economics and theoretical physics and he has published in the fields of physics, history and complexity science.
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.
Conor Barnes
Software 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.
Huon Porteous
Advisor
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.
Jenna Peters
1on1 Systems Lead
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.
Jess Smith
Operations Specialist
Jess came to 80,000 Hours after working as the Athletic Union President at the University of St Andrews. She graduated with an MA in philosophy, and has written on longtermism, animal minds, and equitable education.
Jørgen Ljønes
Interim Head of Internal Systems (previously, Head of 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.
Keiran Harris
Producer
Keiran is a former professional poker player and coach. He was sponsored by PokerStars, the largest online poker company in the world, and made dozens of instructional videos for Run It Once, a leading poker strategy community. He's had articles published in Forbes and Quillette, and made the obvious transition from a graduate psychology program at the University of Melbourne to producer of the 80,000 Hours Podcast.
Kempe Gay-Brydges
Marketer
Kempe holds a BA in German and History from Durham University. Before joining 80,000 Hours, Kempe worked for AmeriCorps, helped start a tuition agency, and worked as a Facebook and Google Ads specialist. When he's not marketing, Kempe enjoys nature hikes and working on an MBA at the University of North Carolina.
Kush Kansagra
Product Lead (Job Board and Headhunting)
Before joining us, Kushal worked primarily as a strategy consultant (at the Boston Consulting Group, and a boutique sports specialist firm) with an interlude working as an editorial researcher for The Economist. He has a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and outside work enjoys playing tennis and watching montages.
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.
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.
Matt Reardon
Growth and Product Development Manager
Matt came to 80,000 Hours after three years of litigating for a top global law firm. Before that, he led Harvard Law School's Effective Altruism student group. He continues to support EA groups at law schools and EA community building in the legal field more broadly.
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.
Niel Bowerman
Director of Special Projects
Niel was a co-founder of the Centre for Effective Altruism and previously served as Assistant Director at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute. He holds a PhD in physics from Oxford, and served as a climate science advisor to the Office of the President of the Maldives. Niel sits on the board of the Centre for Long-Term Resilience.
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.
Rob Wiblin
Head of Research
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.
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.
Sashika Coxhead
Head of Recruiting
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Claire Zabel
Trustee - EVF UK
Claire leads Open Philanthropy's grantmaking on effective altruism, and does research and makes grants relating to the reduction of global catastrophic risks. She has a B.S. and M.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University, where she did research related to the science, ethics, and governance of solar geoengineering. She joined our governing board in 2019.
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.
Tasha McCauley
Trustee - EVF UK
Tasha is a technology entrepreneur and CEO of GeoSim Systems, which centers around a new technology that produces high-resolution, fully interactive virtual models of real cities.
Nicole Ross
Trustee - EVF US
Nicole is the Head of Community Health and Special Projects at the Centre for Effective Altruism, though over the past few months she has been seconded away to focus on EVF US board duties. Before working at CEA she was a Research Analyst and Operations Associate at Open Philanthropy and a Staff Assistant at the Centre for Healthcare Ethics.
Eli Rose
Trustee - EVF US
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.
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 Fellow of Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, 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.
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.
Peter Hartree
External Advisor
Peter is CEO of TYPE III AUDIO. He previously worked in various roles at 80,000 Hours.