Norma Altshuler

Senior Program Officer, Global Aid Policy

Norma leads Open Philanthropy's work on global aid policy and advocacy. Her previous work experience includes time at the Hewlett Foundation, USAID, the Global Innovation Fund, GiveDirectly, Innovations for Poverty Action, and Mathematica Policy research. Norma received a BA from Bryn Mawr College and a Master of Public Policy from UC Berkeley.

Sam Anschell

Program Associate

Sam joined Open Philanthropy in February 2022. Before starting at Open Philanthropy, he was a poker dealer by trade and served as a union representative for other poker dealers in Washington State. He has a B.A. in Economics and Music from Wesleyan University.

Nisha Austin

Business Operations Manager

Nisha leads the Business Operations team at Open Philanthropy. Before starting at Open Philanthropy, she co-founded a furniture and design consulting company. Prior to that, she built and led cross-functional design, strategy, and management teams serving a range of impact-driven clients in the technology, education, and non-profit sectors. Nisha has a BA in Political Science and a Masters in Architecture from the University of Michigan and currently serves in her town government in Marblehead, MA.

Chris Bakerlee

Senior Program Associate, Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness

Chris supports Open Philanthropy’s work on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. He previously completed a PhD in evolutionary genetics at Harvard University, and he is an alumnus of the Johns Hopkins Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative and the Council on Strategic Risks Fellowship for Ending Bioweapons Programs. Prior to that, he worked as a consultant in McKinsey & Company’s Boston office.

Asya Bergal

Senior Program Associate, Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building

Asya joined Open Philanthropy in April 2021. Previously, she worked as a researcher at AI Impacts and as a trader and software engineer at a cryptocurrency hedge fund. She has a BA in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT.

Alexander leads Open Philanthropy’s work, which ranges across global catastrophic risks, scientific research, policy advocacy, and global health and development. As a cofounder of Open Philanthropy, he led our initial process for selecting focus areas and hiring and training program officers within them. Previously, Alexander worked as a researcher at GiveWell, conducting evidence reviews and cost-effectiveness analyses for potential top charities. He has a B.A. in philosophy and an M.A. in education policy from Stanford University. You can hear him discuss our work on this episode of the 80,000 Hours podcast, or read more in this interview in The Browser.

David Bernard

Research Fellow

David joined Open Philanthropy in January 2024. He works on prioritizing and identifying new causes where Open Philanthropy could have a large impact. Before Open Philanthropy, he worked on the Worldview Investigations Team at Rethink Priorities and completed a PhD in Economics at the Paris School of Economics.

Damon Binder

Research Analyst

Damon joined Open Philanthropy in September 2022. His research focuses on potential risks from pandemics and from biotechnology. He previously worked as a research scholar at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, where he studied existential risks, and prior to that he completed his PhD in physics at Princeton University.

Daniel Binette

In-House Counsel

Daniel joined Open Philanthropy in October 2023. Before taking this role, he was Senior Legal Counsel at Jetty and was previously an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in their debt finance practice group. Daniel earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in Political Science from McGill University.

Allison Blajda

Salesforce Administrator and Technical Project Manager

Ali joined Open Philanthropy in January 2024 and supports Open Philanthropy’s Salesforce implementation and user base. Previously, she was an Information Systems Delivery Lead with VentureWell and a Salesforce Consultant and Technical Project Manager with Vera Solutions. Ali holds a B.A. from George Washington University and an M.S. in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.

Lewis Bollard

Program Director, Farm Animal Welfare

Lewis leads Open Philanthropy’s strategy for Farm Animal Welfare. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he worked as Policy Advisor & International Liaison to the CEO at The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Prior to that, he was a litigation fellow at HSUS, a law student, and an associate consultant at Bain & Company. He has a B.A. from Harvard University in Social Studies and a JD from Yale Law School.

Nora Ait Boucherbil

Business Operations Coordinator

Nora joined Open Philanthropy in October 2023. Before starting at Open Philanthropy, she conducted research on carbon fiber structural batteries in the Pint Nanomaterials and Energy Devices Lab and was a fellow of the Searle Undergraduate Research Program. She has a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University.

Alex Bowles

Senior Program Associate

Alex joined Open Philanthropy in January 2022. He works on identifying the most promising opportunities to make new vaccines, drugs, and other health technologies available to people in low- and middle-income countries. Before joining Open Philanthropy, he worked for the Clinton Health Access Initiative on malaria elimination and improving access to vaccines.

Hazel Browne

Research Fellow

Hazel joined Open Philanthropy in June 2023 as a Research Fellow. Before that, she was a PhD student in Economics at MIT. She has a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Sydney and an MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics.

Emma Buckland

Program Associate, Farm Animal Welfare

Emma joined Open Philanthropy as a Program Associate in September 2022. She recently graduated from Oxford with an MPhil in Economics. Her research focused primarily on development and spatial economics - including mapping informal settlements across sub-Saharan Africa at scale for the first time. Prior to her MPhil, Emma worked at the Boston Consulting Group in Johannesburg. She has also been a Research Fellow for Charity Entrepreneurship in London.

Britney Budiman

Content Editor

Britney joined Open Philanthropy in May 2023. Previously, she worked in operations at a housing start-up building accessory dwelling units, and as an English teacher in Japan. Britney graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A. in Urban Studies.

Cash Callaghan

Program Assistant, Farm Animal Welfare

Cash joined Open Philanthropy in November 2021. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he worked as a researcher at Animal Charity Evaluators, where he conducted charity evaluations and reviewed grant applications. Cash received a B.A. in Individualized Study (concentrating in the History and Philosophy of Environmental Political Economy) from New York University, where he co-founded the Effective Altruism at NYU student club.

Joseph Carlsmith

Senior Research Analyst

Joseph joined Open Philanthropy in September 2018. His research focuses on risks to humanity’s long-term future. He’s also a doctoral student in philosophy at Oxford University. He has a BPhil in Philosophy from Oxford University and a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University.

Clement Chan

Salesforce Administrator and Technical Project Manager

Clem joined Open Philanthropy in December 2023. Previously, he worked at Natural Resources Defense Council as Senior Salesforce Administrator, and subsequently led his team as Senior Director of Data Infrastructure. He was also a Salesforce Administrator at a NYC-based nonprofit, The Financial Clinic. Before moving to New York, he was a writer, editor, and proofreader at Groupon Malaysia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Finance from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

Matt Clancy

Research Fellow

Matt joined Open Philanthropy in November 2022 where he works on ways to safely accelerate scientific progress and innovation. Matt is a senior fellow at the Institute for Progress, where he was previously Senior Innovation Economist. He taught economics for several years at Iowa State University, and worked on science policy at the US Department of Agriculture after obtaining a PhD in economics from Iowa State University. He is the creator of the living literature review New Things Under the Sun, which he continues to maintain as part of his work at Open Philanthropy.

Katharine Collins

Program Officer, Global Health R&D

Katharine joined the Global Health R&D team in May 2023. Her goal is to identify and support research and development opportunities for new tools to tackle diseases with a large global health burden. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy she was an international malaria researcher based at the University of Oxford in the UK, Queensland Medical Research Institute in Australia, and Radboud University Medical Centre in The Netherlands, with research projects based in Burkina Faso and Mali. Her research focused on the development and evaluation of malaria vaccines, development of human malaria infection models, and malaria transmission epidemiology. She holds a Ph.D in malaria vaccine development from the University of Oxford, and a Masters in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Bath.

Dylan Corliss

Operations Associate

Dylan joined Open Philanthropy in January 2022. In his previous role, he worked as an operations contractor for The Centre for Long-Term Resilience, and did undergraduate research in bioethics, neuroscience, and computer science education. He has a B.A. in philosophy from San Diego State University.

Ajeya Cotra

Senior Program Officer, Potential Risks from Advanced AI

Ajeya leads Open Phil's grantmaking on technical research that could help to clarify and reduce catastrophic risks from advanced AI. As part of this role, Ajeya conducts analysis on threat models (ways that advanced AI could cause catastrophic harm) and technical agendas (technical work that may help to address these threat models). Previously, she worked on estimating when transformative AI might be developed, estimating the expected returns to funding across cause areas related to global catastrophic risk, and thinking about how worldview diversification could be implemented in budget allocation. She joined Open Philanthropy in July 2016 as a Research Analyst. Ajeya has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, where she founded the Effective Altruists of Berkeley student group and taught a course on effective altruism.

Max Daniel

Senior Program Associate, Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building

Max joined Open Philanthropy in November 2022. Previously, he worked in research and project management roles at several organizations in the effective altruism community, including the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research and Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute. He has a master's in mathematics from Heidelberg University.

Caroline Daniell

Associate In-House Counsel

Caroline joined Open Philanthropy in September 2023. Before taking this role, she worked as Of Counsel at Richman Law & Policy and was a law lecturer in New Zealand. Prior to those roles, she worked as a commercial litigator in New York. Caroline earned a JD from Columbia Law School, an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and a Bachelor’s in Philosophy and Religion from the College of the Holy Cross.

Tom Davidson

Senior Research Fellow

Tom joined Open Philanthropy in January 2020. He’s currently working on assessing arguments that transformative AI might be developed relatively soon, which is an input into how much capital should be allocated to the potential risks from advanced AI focus area relative to other areas. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, Tom worked as a Data Scientist for education technology startup BridgeU and taught science at a UK comprehensive school. He has a Masters in Physics and Philosophy from the University of Oxford.

Kayla Demarest

Business Operations Associate

Kayla joined Open Philanthropy in February 2024. Previously, she worked at IDinsight as a Senior Partnerships Analyst, managing grants and funder relationships. She has a BA in Economics and International Development from McGill University.

Jasmine Dhaliwal

Chief of Staff

Jasmine joined Open Philanthropy in August 2023 as Chief of Staff to the CEO. Prior to joining, Jasmine was a British diplomat working in defense and international security with postings to NATO and the OSCE. Before that, she worked on prison reform policy at the Ministry of Justice. Jasmine has a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and is an alumnus of the Johns Hopkins Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative.

Sam Donald

Strategy Fellow

Sam joined Open Philanthropy in October 2022. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he led the Behavioral Analysis team within the UK's COVID-19 Taskforce, and previously worked at Channel 4 and McKinsey & Company. He has an MSc in Economics for Development and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.

Madeline Ephgrave

Grants Associate

Madeline joined the Grants Management team in March 2024. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, she worked as a Grants Lead and Grants Administrator at Effective Ventures Foundation where she supported their grantmaking. She enjoys learning new skills, including foreign languages, music, and sport.

Peter Favaloro

Research Fellow

Peter works to identify new issue areas where Open Philanthropy could have high impact, and to prioritize Open Philanthropy’s giving across causes in policy, scientific research, and global development. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, Peter was a graduate student at the London School of Economics (LSE) and a researcher at Stanford and MIT Sloan, focusing on the economics of public goods. Before that, he analyzed currency markets in Bridgewater Associates’ research department and was a product manager in Bridgewater’s Systemized Intelligence Lab. Peter holds an MSc in Economics from LSE and a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy from Princeton.

Lukas Finnveden

Research Fellow

Lukas joined Open Philanthropy in September 2022. He's currently conducting research on what we can do to reduce potential risks from advanced AI. Previously, he was a research scholar at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He has a B.S. in computer science from KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Meiko Flynn-Do

People Operations Coordinator

Meiko joined the Operations team in March of 2022. Before joining Open Philanthropy, she worked at Oasis for Girls, an education non-profit that partners with girls of color in San Francisco; while there, she facilitated the ENVISION: Career Exploration program. Meiko graduated from Stanford University in 2019 with a B. A. in Urban Studies.

Aaron Gertler

COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER

Aaron joined Open Philanthropy in January 2022, after spending three years working on content at the Centre for Effective Altruism. He’s helped to run a variety of projects in the EA community, including the EA Forum and EA Newsletter; he also co-founded Yale University’s student EA group. Outside his work in effective altruism, he’s a passionate Twitch streamer and semi-professional gamer who placed second at the 2020 Magic: the Gathering world championship.

Lauren Gilbert

Research Fellow

Lauren works on finding new cause areas for Open Philanthropy to fund. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, she was a PhD student in political science at UC San Diego. She holds a MA in political science from UC San Diego, MS in physics from UC San Diego, and a BS in physics from Caltech.

Glen Gordon

Grants Associate

Glen joined the grants team in April 2022. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he was a Vetting and Grants Management Fellow at GlobalGiving, where he conducted due diligence and facilitated the grants process for community-led nonprofits around the world. He has a B.A. in international studies from American University

Martin Gould

Senior Program Associate, Farm Animal Welfare

Martin joined Open Philanthropy in September 2022. He works on identifying opportunities to improve farmed animal welfare. Previously he worked at the Paul Ramsay Foundation, and prior to that with IDinsight in Zambia and Malawi.

Phillip Greene

Finance Operations Coordinator

Phillip joined Open Philanthropy in May 2023. Previously, he worked at KPMG as an Audit Associate. He graduated from College of Charleston with a B.A. in Arts Management, and holds an M.S. in Accounting from University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Santosh Harish

Program Officer

Santosh leads our grantmaking in environmental health within our Global Public Health Policy Program. His work currently focuses on particulate air pollution and lead exposure. Santosh joined Open Philanthropy in January 2022 to lead our South Asian Air Quality Program, before expanding his role to cover a wider breadth of environmental health issues. Prior to this, he was a researcher in air quality governance at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and the India center of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, and did post-doctoral fellowships with J-PAL South Asia and Evidence for Policy Design. He has a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

Julian Hazell

Program Associate, AI Governance and Policy

Julian joined Open Philanthropy in August 2023. Before joining Open Philanthropy, he worked as a summer research fellow at the Centre for the Governance of AI, and then as a research assistant for their policy team. Prior to this, he worked as a content and research associate at Giving What We Can. Julian holds an MSc in Social Science of the Internet from the University of Oxford and a BA in Economics from McGill University.

Derek Hopf

Director of Grants Management

Derek is Open Philanthropy’s Director of Grants Management and oversees our grantmaking logistics, including finance and legal operations. He’s been with Open Philanthropy since July 2017. Prior to his time at Open Philanthropy, he spent six years in a variety of roles at Reasoning Mind, an education nonprofit that developed digital math programs based on international pedagogy and best practices. Derek graduated from Indiana University. In his free time, he enjoys reading, traveling, playing tennis, and spending time with his wife, friends, and family members.

Amanda Hungerford

PROGRAM OFFICER, FARM ANIMAL WELFARE

Amanda joined Open Philanthropy in March 2018. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, Amanda worked as a staff attorney, specializing in farm animal issues for The Humane Society of the United States. Before that, Amanda clerked for Judge Stefan R. Underhill of the District of Connecticut. Amanda has a B.A. in English and Sociology from Wesleyan University and a JD from Columbia Law School.  

Sai Jahann

In-House Counsel

Sai joined Open Philanthropy in May 2022. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, Sai spent over ten years in corporate legal practice, most recently as General Counsel for TripActions, Inc. Sai has a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.S. from Columbia University.

Isabel Juniewicz

Research Fellow

Isabel joined Open Philanthropy in April 2022. Prior to that, she has been a research fellow at Forethought Foundation, a doctoral student in Economics at UCLA, and a research assistant at the Federal Reserve. Isabel has an MA in Economics from UCLA and a BA in Economics, Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science from Rutgers University.

Dee Kathuria

Recruiter

Dee joined Open Philanthropy in October 2023. Previously, she was the Outreach and Communications Director at Effective Thesis, a nonprofit that assists students in choosing impactful thesis topics, and also served as a marketing advisor at the University of Southern California. She holds a Bachelor of Engineering in IT.

Ray Kennedy

Program Officer, Global Health R&D

Ray joined the global health research and development team in February 2023. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy he worked for the Clinton Health Access Initiative, UNICEF, DFID & Innovision Consulting and has lived in DR Congo, Ethiopia & Bangladesh. He holds an MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from London School of Economics & London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Jeremy Klemin

Content Editor

Jeremy joined Open Philanthropy in January 2024. Prior to joining, he worked as a freelance writer and editor for organizations like the Centre for Long-Term Resilience and the Cerebral Palsy Research Network. He received a B.A. from California State University, Long Beach and an M.F.A. from Oregon State University.

Damien Koussis

Business Operations Coordinator

Damien joined Open Philanthropy in November of 2023. Before starting at Open Phil, he ran a nonprofit focused on increasing awareness of existential risks, volunteered on political campaigns, and worked to certify B Corps at B Lab in Philadelphia. He has a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Molly Kovite

Manager, Legal Operations

Molly joined Open Philanthropy in January 2021. Before taking this role, she was the head of International Humanitarian Law at the American Red Cross. Prior to that, she served as a Judge Advocate in the U.S. Army, where she still serves as a reservist. Molly has a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University.

Myron Krueger

Grants Associate

Myron joined OP in January 2024. He previously worked in various early-stage startups, most recently in Business Operation roles at Alvea and Omnipresent. Prior to that he worked at the venture capital firm Entrepreneur First as an Analyst. He enjoys playing tennis and spending time with friends and family.

Abhi Kumar

Program Associate, Farm Animal Welfare

Abhi joined Open Philanthropy in September 2022. He works on investigating the most promising opportunities to reduce the suffering of farm animals, with a focus on the development and commercialization of alternatives to animal products. Previously, he worked as a researcher studying the cost structure of meat alternatives. Prior to that, he worked on the investment teams at venture capital funds Lever VC and Ahimsa VC. He has an MMS from Yale School of Management & HEC Paris, and a BSocSc from Singapore Management University.

Rafael Latham-Proença

Research Fellow

Rafael joined Open Philanthropy in September 2022, where he helps the Global Health and Wellbeing Cause Prioritization team find new cause areas to fund. He is also a PhD candidate in Public Policy at Harvard, and previously worked as a research fellow at Harvard's Center for International Development and a JPA and consultant at the World Bank. He holds an MPA-ID from Harvard University, an MSc in Economics and a BSc in Molecular Sciences from the University of São Paulo.

Michelle Lavery

Program Associate, Farm Animal Welfare

Michelle joined Open Philanthropy in September 2022 as the Farm Animal Welfare team's first science-focused Program Associate. She has a PhD from the University of Guelph's Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare, during which she focused her dissertation research on fish behaviour and welfare. She has also previously worked with Rethink Priorities on their Moral Weight Project as a farmed fish welfare consultant, and has contributed to Canada's National Farm Animal Care Council's Farmed Salmonid Code of Practice as a fish welfare scientist. Aside from her doctorate, Michelle also has an MSc (Biology: focused on salmonid ecology) from the University of New Brunswick's Canadian Rivers Institute, and a BScH (Specialization in Biology) from Queen's University.

Alex Lawsen

Senior Program Associate, AI Governance and Policy

Alex joined Open Philanthropy in August 2023 from 80,000 Hours, where he was Advising Manager on the 1-on-1 team. Prior to this, he taught Mathematics and Physics at a specialist Sixth Form college in London.

Howie Lempel

Senior Advisor and Interim Managing Director, Global Catastrophic Risks

Howie advises our CEO and leads our work on Global Catastrophic Risks on an interim basis. Previously, he was Interim CEO of Effective Ventures UK and held various roles at 80,000 Hours, including Chief of Staff and CEO. He studied at Yale Law School, where he spent summers as a public defender in Louisiana and suing prisons for the ACLU. He left Yale for an earlier stint as Open Philanthropy’s first Program Officer for Global Catastrophic Risks when we were still a project of GiveWell. He has also worked at the Brookings Institution and the Manhattan DA’s white-collar crime bureau. He has a BA in mathematical economics and social studies from Wesleyan University.

Jia Li Leonard

Business Operations Associate

Jia Li joined the Operations team in June of 2022. Before joining Open Philanthropy, she completed sustainability-related internships and a fellowship with Evergreen Strategy Group, a policy communications firm. Jia Li graduated from Georgetown University with a B.S. in Management and Marketing, and a minor in Environmental Studies.

Trevor Levin

Program Associate, AI Governance and Policy

Trevor joined Open Philanthropy in June 2023. Before joining Open Philanthropy, he co-founded the Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative, a nonprofit aiming to empower people to pursue impactful careers in research and policy related to reducing risks from advanced AI. Previously, he was a summer research fellow at the Centre for the Governance of AI, a student in Harvard's JD/MPP program, and an assistant project manager at CAMBA Housing Ventures. Trevor has a BA in Social Studies from Harvard.

Martin McDonald

People Operations Associate, Immigration & Global Workforce

Martin joined the Operations team in September 2022. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he spent ten years working as an immigration paralegal for New York City-based law firms, most recently as a Business Immigration Supervisor at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP.

Evan McVail

Recruiter

Evan joined Open Philanthropy in September 2022. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he worked as the COO at One for the World, a community organizing non-profit which raises money for GiveWell's recommended charities. He has a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Villanova University.

Eddie Moore

Grants Associate

Eddie joined the Grants Managements team in April 2023. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he worked in a variety of nonprofit operations roles and, before that, as a corporate lawyer for a London firm. He has a degree in modern and medieval languages from the University of Cambridge.

Deena Mousa

Chief of Staff, Global Health and Wellbeing

Deena joined Open Philanthropy in January 2024. Before starting at Open Philanthropy, Deena was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where her work focused on health. Deena graduated with a BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from Yale University.

Luke Muehlhauser

SENIOR PROGRAM OFFICER, AI GOVERNANCE AND POLICY

Luke joined Open Philanthropy in 2015. He leads our grantmaking on AI governance and policy. Previously, as a Research Analyst and then a Senior Research Analyst, his investigations spanned a wide range of topics, particularly the social sciences, global catastrophic risks, animal consciousness, and forecasting. Before joining Open Philanthropy, he was Executive Director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, California.

Max Nadeau

Program Associate, Technical AI Safety

Max joined Open Philanthropy in October 2023. Previously, he conducted research investigating the interpretability of image classification and language models. He has also organized educational and residency programs for researchers entering AI Safety. He received a B.A. in Computer Science from Harvard College.

Rossa leads Open Philanthropy's cause prioritisation research team, which looks for high impact cause areas in Global Health and Wellbeing. He joined Open Philanthropy from the University of Oxford, where he held positions at the Global Priorities Institute and the Economics Department. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA and MSc from the University of Oxford.

Kathryn O’Rourke

Business Operations Coordinator

Kathryn joined Open Philanthropy in February 2024. She previously worked on community building and organizing for AI safety. She graduated from King’s College London with a BA in film studies.

Emily Oehlsen

Managing Director, Global Health and Wellbeing

Emily leads Open Philanthropy’s work on Global Health and Wellbeing, which allocates hundreds of millions of dollars per year and includes programs focused on scientific research, policy advocacy, global development, and phasing out the worst factory farm practices. She joined Open Philanthropy in April 2021, first working on new cause investigations and helping to manage the Regranting Challenge. She previously worked at DeepMind, Uber, and TGG Group. She has a BSFS in International Political Economy from Georgetown University and an MPhil in Economics from Oxford University.

Eric Parrie

Managing Director, Operations

Eric leads Open Philanthropy’s operations. He joined Open Philanthropy in January 2024. He previously was founder and CEO of COVIDCheck Colorado, an executive coach, and a history teacher at GW Carver High School in New Orleans’ 9th Ward. You can read his writing on building cultures of excellence and belonging at Growthology. He holds a BA in Political Science from Tulane, a Masters in French and Comparative Literature from the Université de Nantes, and a JD from Yale Law School.

Paul Peña

People Operations Associate

Paul joined Open Philanthropy in November 2023. Previously, he was Chief Operating Officer at Invisible Hands Deliver. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University, an M.A. in Political Science from Columbia University, and an M.P.A. from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Alessandra Peters

Global Catastrophic Risks Grants Associate

Alessandra joined the Grants Management team in January 2023. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, she worked in strategy and operations at a cybersecurity startup. She has an MBiochem (Hons) in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry from the University of Oxford.

Matthew Poe

SALESFORCE ARCHITECT AND SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR

Matthew leads the development and management of Open Philanthropy’s Salesforce platform. Before joining Open Philanthropy, he served as CRM Product Manager at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where he oversaw Salesforce system architecture. Prior to that, he coordinated Columbia Law School’s pro bono program, and helped nonprofit clients get the most out of Salesforce as a consultant at Cloud for Good. Matthew enjoys participating in the open source Salesforce.org community, and serves as a leader of the NYC Salesforce Developer Community Group. In 2019, Salesforce awarded him MVP status for his community contributions. Before working with Salesforce, Matthew spent over a decade in the field of performing arts administration. He holds a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from West Virginia University, and lives in New York City, where he enjoys vegan junk food and seeing almost any kind of live performance.  

Javier Prieto

Program Associate, Forecasting

Javier joined Open Philanthropy in 2021. His work supports Open Phil’s forecasting efforts (led by Benjamin Tereick), which include funding the forecasting ecosystem as well as internal-facing initiatives in foresight and evaluation. He’s been involved in effective altruism since 2018, especially through his local community in Spain. He holds a double BSc in Physics and Mathematics. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he interned at CERN and worked as a freelance “mathy tech person” for two years.

Kate Pruitt

Grants Associate

Kate joined Open Philanthropy in 2022. Previously, she was the Faculty Records Coordinator at California College of the Arts. She has also worked as Community Manager for Calm.com, a mindfulness and meditation app, and as a contributing writer for A&E Television. She received a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.F.A. from Mills College.

Matt Putz

Program Associate, Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building

Matt joined Open Philanthropy in February 2023. He holds a Bachelor’s in Engineering Science with a specialization in machine learning from the Technical University of Munich, where he co-organized Munich’s EA group. Prior to joining the Open Phil team, Matt ran a 10-week ML bootcamp to upskill people interested in working on AI safety.

Nick Ravazzolo

People Operations Associate

Nick joined Open Philanthropy in July of 2022. Previously, he worked at Paylocity as an Implementation Manager, focusing on process improvement initiatives and the small client experience. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with degrees in Marketing and Italian.

Ilva Ravinska

Grants Associate

Ilva joined Open Philanthropy in April 2023. Previously, she worked in a variety of roles managing and developing operations for Effective Altruism projects, and as a Treasurer for her local nonprofit. Ilva has a B.A. in International Business Management from Anglia Ruskin University.

Otis Reid

Advisor

Otis advises our Global Health and Wellbeing teams, providing input on questions related to cause selection and global development. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy in 2021, he was a political donor advisor and worked at BlueLabs, a campaign analytics firm, managing their Campaign Modeling team. Before graduate school, he also spent a year at McKinsey & Company. Otis has a PhD in economics from MIT, where he studied the political economy of development, working primarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. He also holds a BA in economics and public policy from Stanford.  

Adin Richards

Junior Research Fellow

Adin joined Open Philanthropy in June 2023. He's currently researching ways to mitigate threats to global food production as part of the Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness team. Previously, Adin was a Biosecurity Fellow at the Institute for Progress, and he has researched pandemic preparedness, agriculture, and climate change. He has a B.A. in Geology-Biology and a B.A. in Public Health from Brown University.

David Roodman

Senior Advisor

David supports Open Philanthropy with in-depth reviews of evidence on empirical questions, such as "Do alcohol taxes save lives?" and "Does immigration reduce pay or employment for natives?" David worked at the Worldwatch Institute for nine years and the Center for Global Development for eleven. After a time with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he became an independent consultant in 2014, and soon began working with Open Philanthropy on that basis. He became an employee in 2015. David holds a degree in theoretical mathematics from Harvard, and spent an academic year on a Fulbright in Vietnam.

Eli Rose

Program Officer, Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building

Eli joined Open Philanthropy in June 2020. 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.  

George Rosenfeld

Chief of Staff, Global Catastrophic Risks

George joined Open Philanthropy in March 2024. Previously, he worked as Chief of Staff at Effective Ventures UK and as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. George has a B.A. from Cambridge and was a Henry Fellow at Harvard, where he focused on moral psychology.

Tom Rowlands

Recruiter

Tom joined Open Philanthropy in October 2023, after spending a year helping EA organizations source mid- and senior-level talent. Prior to that, he worked for the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office for eight years. He completed a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the University of Oxford, during which time he also served as Communications Director for Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours.

Joey Schnide

Legal Assistant

Joey joined the Grants team in June 2021. He graduated from George Washington University with a B.A. in International Affairs in 2019, and has worked as an Immigration Paralegal for Mayer Brown LLP and as a parliamentary debate coach for his former debate team at GW.

Jason Schukraft

Research Fellow

Jason joined Open Philanthropy in April 2022. He works to identify new areas where Open Philanthropy could have high impact and also helps to prioritize across existing causes. Before joining Open Philanthropy, Jason was a Senior Research Manager at Rethink Priorities, where he worked on animal welfare and global health and development issues. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jake Schwarber

Finance Manager

Jake graduated from Villanova University in 2013 with bachelor’s degrees in accounting and finance. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he served as an Infantry Platoon Leader in the US Army and, most recently, was an Assurance Manager with PwC. He joined Open Philanthropy in February 2022.

Sam Scott

Associate In-House Counsel

Sam joined Open Philanthropy in February 2022. Before taking this role, he was an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP in their Environment, Land & Resources practice group. Sam earned a JD and a Master of Environmental Studies from Penn, as well as a bachelor’s in Politics from Princeton.

Gilad Seckler

Legal Team Coordinator

Gilad joined Open Philanthropy in January 2024. Previously, he supported operations at the Gesell Program in Early Childhood at Yale, and taught English at the high school and undergraduate levels. He holds a Master's in Teaching for secondary English education and a Bachelor's in Psychology and Literary Arts from Brown University.

Kasey Shibayama

Program Associate, Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building

Kasey joined Open Philanthropy in August 2022.  Previously, he was a software engineering intern at Amazon and co-led the EA club at Northwestern University, where he graduated with a BA in Computer Science.

Jamie Simonson

Program Operations Coordinator, Global Health and Wellbeing

Jamie joined Open Philanthropy in January 2023. Previously, he worked as a Policy Associate at J-PAL North America and as a Monitoring & Evaluation Officer at the Adonis Musati Project. Jamie holds a BS in Economics from Tulane and a Master’s in Economic Development from the University of Cape Town.

Harshdeep Singh

PROGRAM ASSOCIATE, FARM ANIMAL WELFARE

Harshdeep joined Open Philanthropy in August 2021. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he worked as a consultant for Mercy For Animals in the government affairs and public policy team. Prior to that, he was an associate at PLR Chambers, a law firm specializing in regulatory and policy affairs. He has a B.B.A., LL.B (Hons.) from Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar.

Chris Smith

Program Officer

Chris joined the Global Health and Wellbeing team as a Strategy Fellow in January 2022. He leads our grantmaking in alcohol policy, conducts research across our Global Health and Wellbeing portfolio, and manages special projects.  Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he worked as a freelance strategy consultant, and previously at OC&C Strategy Consultants in London. Chris has bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Theology from the University of Oxford and in Economics and Mathematical Sciences from the Open University; he completed his Masters in Public Health at Imperial College London.

Kiana Snekcim-Shields

People Operations Coordinator, Immigration and Global Workforce

Kiana joined Open Philanthropy’s Business Immigration team in September 2023. She brings experience in legal administration, operations, fundraising, grants management, and community development, having previously held positions across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Her passion lies in breaking down intercultural communication barriers and transforming complex information into digestible content. She has a B.A. in International Studies, a B.A. in Spanish Language, and a Certificate of Translation and Interpretation from Virginia Commonwealth University.

James Snowden

Senior Program Officer

James oversees Open Philanthropy’s global health and wellbeing programs on policy and effective altruism. James joined Open Phil in July 2022 from GiveWell, where he led programs in policy and advocacy, including work across lead exposure, alcohol policy, suicide prevention, and the response to COVID-19. He holds a B.A. from the University of Oxford and an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics.

Andrew Snyder-Beattie

Program Director

Andrew leads Open Philanthropy’s work on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. He previously spent five years at the Future of Humanity Institute (University of Oxford), where he worked as a program manager and later as Director of Research, developing programs across the institute (including those in biosecurity and systemic risk). Prior to that, he was a researcher at a personalized medicine startup. He holds a PhD/DPhil in Zoology from the University of Oxford and is an alumnus of the Johns Hopkins Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative.  

Chris Somerville

SENIOR PROGRAM OFFICER, SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Chris joined Open Philanthropy in 2016. He is focused on identifying and evaluating potential philanthropic opportunities in various aspects of basic and applied scientific research. Chris has been a professor at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and Michigan State University. He has published more than 230 research papers in biochemistry, and in cell and molecular biology. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London and has received numerous awards for his scientific contributions. He has a Ph.D in genetics and a B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Alberta.  

Will Sorflaten

Recruiter

Will joined Open Philanthropy in October 2023. Previously, he worked as the Senior Programme Manager for a start-up EdTech, and holds a background in animal advocacy and teaching. Will graduated from the University of Cambridge with a B.A. in English Literature.

Bastian Stern

Senior Program Associate, Global Catastrophic Risks

Bastian has been working with Open Philanthropy since September 2018. He previously worked as a buy-side analyst for J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s European Equities team. He holds a BPhil and DPhil in philosophy from the University of Oxford and a BA in philosophy from Cambridge University. During his time at Cambridge, he founded the university’s Giving What We Can chapter.

Ben Stewart

Research Analyst

Ben joined Open Philanthropy in September 2023. Previously, he was an independent researcher in global health and biosecurity and a Charity Entrepreneurship incubatee. He has an MD, BSc in Neuroscience, and BA in Philosophy and International Relations from the University of Sydney.

Anna Maybach Sullivan

Grants Associate

Anna joined Open Philanthropy in March 2023. Previously, she worked in strategy and operations roles on two California ballot measures, and as a project manager at CovidActNow. She received a B.A. from Vanderbilt University and completed a Postbac at Columbia University.

Maura Taylor

Recruiting Manager

Maura joined the operations team in June 2022. Before joining Open Philanthropy, Maura was executive director of a longstanding social service nonprofit in New Mexico. She previously worked as a hedge fund researcher and financial analyst, and has a B.A. in Economics from Lewis & Clark College.

Benjamin Tereick

Senior Program Associate, Forecasting

Benjamin joined Open Philanthropy in August 2023. He works on identifying outstanding opportunities for growing the forecasting community, and on improving Open Philantropy's internal forecasting. Before joining Open Philanthropy, Benjamin worked as an economics postdoc at the Global Priorities Institute (Oxford University). He holds a BA in Philosophy and Economics from the University of Bayreuth, an MPhil in Economics from the Tinbergen Institute, and a PhD in Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Daniel De La Torre

Grants Manager

Danny joined the Operations team in June 2018. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he co-founded Elm Gives, a micro-donation technology platform for emerging donors and effective nonprofits. Prior to that, he served as a Student Programs Associate for the Ocean Discovery Institute. He has a B.S. in Environmental Science and Applied Sustainability from UC San Diego.  

Jacob Trefethen

Senior Program Officer

Jacob oversees Open Philanthropy’s science and science policy programs. Previously, he co-founded Pie, acquired by Snapchat. He was a Henry Fellow at Harvard University, and has a B.A. from the University of Cambridge.

Cari Tuna

President

Cari co-founded Good Ventures with her husband Dustin Moskovitz (co-founder of Facebook and Asana) in 2011 and is the foundation’s President. She helps set the strategy and oversee the work of Open Philanthropy, which is the primary basis for Good Ventures’ grant decisions. Previously, Cari was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she covered a range of topics, including corporate management, the California economy, and enterprise technology. She has a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University.

Rebca van de Ven

Operations Associate

Rebca joined the Operations team in May 2023. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, she worked as a Senior Project Management Consultant at IBM in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Rebca has a B.S. in Mathematics and B.S. in Philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

James Wagstaff

Senior Program Associate, Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness

James joined Open Philanthropy in August 2022. He previously completed a PhD in structural biology at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, before working on developing antibiotic discovery tools. More recently he was a Research Fellow in biosecurity at the University of Oxford.

Jennifer Waldmann

Program Operations Associate, Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building

Jennifer joined Open Philanthropy in August 2022. She holds a B.S. in Applied Statistics from Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, where she co-founded an Effective Altruism university chapter.

Chris Webster

Information Security Associate

Chris joined Open Philanthropy in March 2022. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he was a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Board, where he worked on international financial stability. As part of his work at the Fed, he developed an R package, fedmatch, for linking datasets without common identifiers. He’s passionate about reading, and maintains a blog on reading the classics. He graduated with a B.S. in Physics from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2019.

Anna Weldon

Director of Internal Operations

Anna is Open Philanthropy’s Director of Internal Operations and oversees our business operations, people operations, immigration, and recruiting. She’s been with Open Philanthropy since July 2022. Prior to her time at Open Philanthropy, she served as Director of Human Resources at Buffalo Exchange, guiding the organization on manager development, change management, and organizational restructuring. She has worked as a teacher, on political campaigns, and as an executive coach. Throughout her career, she has served as a leader of teams and a mentor to managers. 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.

Emily White

Salesforce Administrator & Technical Project Manager

Emily joined Open Philanthropy in April 2023 and supports Open Philanthropy's Salesforce implementation and user base. Previously, she was the Salesforce Administrator at Boston-based educational non-profit Facing History & Ourselves. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Luke Willey

IT Lead

Luke joined Open Philanthropy in September 2023. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he was the Director of IT at The WorkSmart Group, where he worked to securely scale a rapidly growing operation and build a data and analytics team. As part of his work at WorkSmart, he used Python to leverage datasets across several software packages. He's an obsessive reader and always loves a good book recommendation. He has a B.A. in History and a B.S. in Computer Science.

Josephine Williams

Finance Operations Associate

Josephine became a member of the Finance team at Open Philanthropy in May 2023. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, she worked in finance and accounting roles at the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, Grant Thornton, and most recently Blue Origin. Josephine holds a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Rockhurst University and a Master’s degree in Accounting from the University of Arizona.

Heather Youngs

Senior Program Officer, Scientific Research

Heather joined Open Philanthropy in August 2016. Her goal is to identify philanthropic opportunities in transformative basic and applied research that have important societal impact. She was director of the Bakar Fellows Program for faculty entrepreneurs at UC Berkeley, a senior strategic advisor at the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley, and an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University. She received a B.S. in biology from Michigan Technological University and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Oregon Health and Science University, and was an NIH post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University.

Claire Zabel

Program Director

Claire oversees the Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness team and makes grants across Open Philanthropy’s efforts to reduce global catastrophic risks. She joined Open Philanthropy in August 2015 as a Research Analyst and went on to lead our Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building team. Claire has a B.S. and M.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University, where she conducted research related to the science, ethics, and governance of solar geoengineering.

Philip Zealley

Recruiter

Philip joined Open Philanthropy in August 2022. Previously, he spent over three years recruiting strategy and transformation leaders as an executive search consultant, and also worked in audit for PwC. He graduated from the University of Oxford with a B.A. in Classics.

Our team includes employees and contractors across the different entities in the Open Philanthropy group, all united by our mission to do the most good we can with the resources available to us.