Contributors—Asterisk

Aella is an independent sexologist. More of her writing can be found at Knowingless. → Half A Million Kinksters Can’t Be Wrong, Issue 04

Scott Alexander is a writer and psychiatrist based in Oakland, California. He blogs at astralcodexten.substack.com. → Is Wine Fake?, Issue 01 Through a Glass Darkly, Issue 03 Deros and the Ur-Abduction, Issue 09

Nadia Asparouhova (@nayafia) is a writer and researcher. She is the author of Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software (Stripe Press). → Manufacturing Bliss, Issue 06

Katie Auth is policy director of the Energy for Growth Hub. Her substack is Aid Interrupted. → The Future of American Foreign Aid, Issue 09

Avital Balwit is Communications Lead at Anthropic, an AI lab. She has worked in grantmaking in AI safety and biosecurity, and was a research scholar at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. She is also an Emergent Ventures winner and was selected for the Rhodes Scholarship. → How We Can Regulate AI, Issue 03

Xander Balwit is a writer and wildland firefighter from Portland, Oregon. Unremittingly interested in what kind of future will befall us, Xander explores the plausible, dismal, and hopeful in her work. → They May as Well Grow on Trees, Issue 01

Beth Barnes leads ARC Evals. She designs ARC’s evaluations of generative AI models and oversees a growing technical team carrying them out. Beth previously worked on alignment at DeepMind and at OpenAI. → Crash Testing GPT-4, Issue 03

Tamay Besiroglu is a Research Scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and AI lab and Associate Director of Epoch. Tamay focuses on the intersection of economics and computing. → The Great Inflection? A Debate About AI and Explosive Growth, Issue 03

Sam Bowman is a Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic, where he leads a safety research team, and an Associate Professor at NYU, where he leads a lab that works on evaluating and, more recently, aligning language models. → Intelligence Testing, Issue 04

Ozy Brennan is a researcher at the Shrimp Welfare Project and a former researcher at Wild-Animal Suffering Research. They blog at Thing of Things. → The Virtue of Wonder: Martha Nussbaum’s Justice for Animals, Issue 02 The “TESCREAL” Bungle, Issue 06

Christopher Leslie Brown teaches history at Columbia University. He is the author of Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism, which was awarded the 2007 Frederick Douglass Book Prize. → Making Sense of Moral Change, Issue 01

D. Graham Burnett is a professor of History and History of Science at Princeton University. He is the co-editor, with Justin E.H. Smith, of Scenes of Attention: Essays on Mind, Time, and the Senses (Columbia University Press) out this Fall. Together with collaborators in the “Friends of Attention” coalition, Burnett co-authored Twelve Theses on Attention (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022). He is associated with the non-profit, Brooklyn-based Strother School of Radical Attention, which he helped create. dgrahamburnett.net → Fracking Eyeballs, Issue 04

Lynette Bye is a journalist and Tarbell Fellow covering AI tech and governance. → Can We Build a Five Gigawatt Data Center?, Issue 09

Agnes Callard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her new book Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life (Norton, 2025) argues that if you’re not doing philosophy, you’re making a mistake. → Where the Wild Things Aren’t, Issue 09

Juan Cambiero is a Superforecaster. He placed first in multiple forecasting tournaments, including the IARPA FOCUS 2.0 COVID Forecasting Tournament, and is a biosciences analyst at Metaculus. He is also a graduate student in epidemiology at Columbia University and can be reached at juancambeiro1015@gmail.com. → What Comes After COVID, Issue 02

Lawrence Chan is an AI safety researcher working on model evaluations and interpretability. → Can You Trust An AI Press Release?, Issue 07

Matt Clancy is a research fellow at Open Philanthropy. He writes a living literature review on academic research about innovation at New Things Under the Sun. → The Great Inflection? A Debate About AI and Explosive Growth, Issue 03

Clara Collier is the editor in chief of Asterisk Magazine. → The EA-Progress Studies War is Here, and It’s a Constructive Dialogue!, Issue 06 The Biggest Community Development Program You’ve Never Heard Of, Issue 08

Sarah Constantin holds a PhD in mathematics from Yale and blogs at Rough Diamonds. → The Transistor Cliff, Issue 03 Artificial Wombs When?, Issue 07

Jason Crawford is the founder of The Roots of Progress, where he writes and speaks about the history of technology and the philosophy of progress. Previously, he spent 18 years as a software engineer, engineering manager, and startup founder. → The EA-Progress Studies War is Here, and It’s a Constructive Dialogue!, Issue 06

Kyra Dempsey is a Seattle-based aviation writer who publishes accident and incident breakdowns for professional and lay audiences under the name Admiral Cloudberg. → Why You’ve Never Been In A Plane Crash, Issue 05

Kati Devaney is neuroscientist and meditation practitioner. She is a co-founder of The Berkeley Alembic, a science advisor at Jhourney, and a researcher at the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. → The Science of Woo, Issue 09

Jeffrey Ding is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University. He writes the ChinAI newsletter, a weekly translation of writings from Chinese thinkers on China's AI landscape. → What We Get Wrong About AI & China, Issue 03

Ranil Dissanayake is a senior fellow in the Sustainable Development Finance and Europe programmes at the Center for Global Development. His work focuses on the future of development cooperation, economic development in poor countries, and bridging the gap between research and policymaking. → Between the Lines: A History of the Most Important Concept in Global Poverty, Issue 04

Dynomight writes about science and dispenses life advice at dynomight.net. → My Primal Scream of Rage: The Big Alcohol Study That Didn't Happen, Issue 02 You’re Invited to a Colonoscopy!, Issue 04

Jake Eaton is the managing editor at Asterisk. → Cows vs. Chemists: The Health Debates Over Plant-Based Meat, Issue 02 Mysticism & Empiricism, Issue 04 The Unbearable Loudness of Chewing, Issue 09

Karson Elmgren is a Research Analyst at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), where he works on the AI Assessment team. → China’s Silicon Future, Issue 01

Kevin Esvelt is an associate professor at the MIT Media Lab, where he leads the Sculpting Evolution Group in studying how ecosystems evolve and advancing biotechnology safely. → How to Prevent the Next Pandemic, Issue 01

Sarah Eustis-Guthrie is the co-founder of Maternal Health Initiative. She writes at Beyond Denial. → Why We Shut Down, Issue 07

Kathleen Finlinson is cofounder and Head of Strategy at Eleos AI. She holds graduate degrees in math and applied math. She previously worked as an AI forecasting researcher at the Open Philanthropy Project, a machine learning researcher at lead removal startup BlueConduit, and a strategic advisor for AI policymakers. → Are AIs People?, Issue 09

Bob Fischer is a Professor of Philosophy at Texas State University and serves on the boards of the Insect Welfare Research Society and the Arthropoda Foundation. His books include Weighing Animal Welfare: Comparing Well-being Across Species and Animal Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction. → The Case for Insect Consciousness, Issue 09

Claude S. Fischer is Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School at U.C. Berkeley, author of Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character, and blogs at Made in America. → The Myth of the Loneliness Epidemic, Issue 08

Lauren Gilbert is a research fellow at Open Philanthropy. Her work focuses on finding new areas for highly impactful grantmaking in global health and development. → Rarely is the Question Asked: Is Our Children Learning?, Issue 04 A Defense of Weird Research, Issue 09

Michael D. Gordin is the Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Princeton University. His books include A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table and Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Twitter @GordinMichael → How Long Until Armageddon?, Issue 03

Dave Guarino is a software engineer and (reluctant) policy wonk who works on intervening in complex systems, with a specific focus on applying new technology leverage to social safety net and public benefits programs. He also writes daveguarino.substack.com with an aim of externalizing practical knowledge. → How to Make a Great Government Website, Issue 06

Saarthak Gupta is a researcher with a background in economics. He previously lived in Mumbai while working in the global health and development sector. → The Ruin of Mumbai, Issue 05

Stephan J. Guyenet, PhD is a former researcher in the fields of obesity and neuroscience and the current director of Red Pen Reviews. His book The Hungry Brain was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly and called “essential” by The New York Times Book Review. → Read This, Not That: The Hidden Cost of Nutrition Misinformation, Issue 02

Jordan Hampton is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a veterinarian with broad research interests in wildlife management, animal welfare, toxicology, public health, and ethics. → Animal Welfare in the Anthropocene, Issue 02

Sheon Han is a writer and programmer based in Palo Alto, CA. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, WIRED, The Atlantic, The Point, Quanta Magazine, and elsewhere. You can find his other work at sheonhan.net and on Twitter @sheonhan. → Rat Traps, Issue 08

Casey Handmer is the founder of Terraform Industries, a company building synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. He has worked on optics, gravitation, magnetic machinery, astrophysics, GPS, planetary mapping, and scrolls. → It’s 2024 and Drought is Optional, Issue 06

Ricki Heicklen is an independent generalist based in New York City. She has worked as a quantitative trader, data scientist, and teacher. She blogs at bayesshammai.substack.com. → Michael Lewis’s Blind Side, Issue 05

Andrew Herscowitz is the Executive Director of ODI Global, Washington, DC. He previously served as the Chief Development Officer at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and also as the Coordinator of the U.S. Government’s Power Africa initiative under the Obama and Trump Administrations. → Development Finance Done Right, Issue 07

Molly Hickman is a computer scientist at the Forecasting Research Institute. She previously worked at the MITRE Corporation on test and evaluation for several crowdsourced intelligence projects, and now forecasts herself. She is a member of the Samotsvety forecasting group and has been a ‘Pro’ on INFER. → How Not To Predict The Future, Issue 05

Mike Hinge is a Senior Economist at ALLFED — a non profit that researches and prepares for severe and neglected food shocks. His work primarily concerns how countries can prepare for and respond to disasters that disrupt over 10% of global food output, and the economic, political and social implications of such disasters. → Feeding the World Without Sunlight, Issue 02

Susan Hough is a research seismologist, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and a science writer. Recent books include The Great Quake Debate (University of Washington Press) and Predicting the Unpredictable (Princeton University Press). → The Fault in Our Forecasts, Issue 06

Molly Huang is an internet addict, mother of two, and writer of Chinese Doomscroll, where she bring you the latest trending posts on Chinese social media every day. → A Chinese Internet Phrasebook, Issue 08

John Iceland is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography at Penn State University. → The Devil in the Details: Matthew Desmond’s Poverty by America, Issue 04

Jeremiah Johnson is the founder of the Center for New Liberalism and host of The New Liberal Podcast. He writes at Infinite Scroll. → Prediction Markets Have an Elections Problem, Issue 05 A User’s Guide to Building a Subculture, Issue 08

Greg Justice is a member of the Samotsvety forecasting group. He has worked as an analyst and project manager in the healthcare industry, and is completing his MBA at Chicago Booth. → How Long Til We’re All on Ozempic?, Issue 07

Fred Kaplan is the “War Stories” columnist for Slate and the author of six books, including The Wizards of Armageddon, The Insurgents (a Pulitzer Prize finalist) and The Bomb. → The Illogic of Nuclear Escalation, Issue 01

Scott Kaplan is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the United States Naval Academy. His research focuses on consumer behavior with a particular emphasis on food and health policy. → California vs. Big Soda, Issue 06

Henrik Karlsson (@phokarlsson) writes the blog Escaping Flatland. → Culture Studies, Issue 07

Edwin Kite is an associate professor at the University of Chicago and a participating scientist on the Mars “Curiosity” rover. → Greening the Solar System, Issue 09

Sam Kriss is a writer. He lives in London and blogs at Numb at the Lodge. → Where Babies Come From, Issue 09

Timothy B. Lee is a journalist who writes the newsletter Understanding AI. Previously he was on staff at the Washington Post, Vox.com, and Ars Technica. He has a master's degree in computer science from Princeton. → Debugging Tech Journalism, Issue 06

Jared Leibowich is a forecaster for Samotsvety and the Swift Centre. He placed 1st out of 7,000 for the In the News 2021 Good Judgment competition and is currently ranked 1st for the In the News 2022 competition. He can be reached at jleibowich@gmail.com → Modeling the End of Monkeypox, Issue 01

Alon Levy is a Fellow in the Transportation and Land Use program of the NYU Marron Institute. They write Pedestrian Observations, a blog about public transit. → All Aboard the Bureaucracy Train, Issue 05

Constance Li is the co-founder of Hive, a nonprofit focused on improving farmed animal welfare through community and collaboration. She is also a board certified physician and holds a degree in Animal Sciences. → The Next Revolution in Animal Agriculture, Issue 07

Rob Long is the co-founder and executive director of Eleos AI, a research organization investigating AI sentience and wellbeing. He has a PhD in Philosophy from NYU and previously worked at the Future of Humanity Institute and the Center for AI Safety. → Are AIs People?, Issue 09

Rob Long is the co-founder and executive director of Eleos AI, a research organization investigating AI sentience and wellbeing. He has a PhD in Philosophy from NYU and previously worked at the Future of Humanity Institute and the Center for AI Safety. → Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart AIs Are?, Issue 03

Jonathan Mann is a forecaster for Samotsvety, a Good Judgment Superforecaster, and an INFER All-Star. He has worked as a Data Scientist, a Product Manager, and is currently a Cybersecurity Architect. He lives in New York City and can be reached at jonathan.mann@nyu.edu. → AI Isn’t Coming for Tech Jobs—Yet, Issue 03

Adam Marblestone is a board member of the Lean Focused Research Organization, which is developing Lean software, and is co-founder and CEO of its parent nonprofit, Convergent Research. → Automating Math, Issue 09

Adam Mastroianni is an experimental psychologist. He writes Experimental History. → The Art of Asking Questions, Issue 04

Amalia Miller is the Georgia S. Bankard Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia. Her current research examines topics related to gender and family economics as well as healthcare technology and data privacy. → Behind Closed Doors, Issue 04

Todd Moss is executive director of the Energy for Growth Hub. His substack is Eat More Electrons. → Why Isn’t Solar Scaling in Africa?, Issue 05

Deena Mousa is the Chief of Staff for the Global Health and Wellbeing portfolio at Open Philanthropy, and serves as a grantmaker and researcher. She is also a freelance journalist covering global health and development. → A Defense of Weird Research, Issue 09

Zvi Mowshowitz writes at Don't Worry About the Vase. → Why Is Everyone Suddenly Furious About AI Regulation?, Issue 06

Alec Nevala-Lee is the author of Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller and Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction. He is currently at work on Collisions, a biography of the physicist Luis W. Alvarez, which will be published by W. W. Norton in the summer of 2025. → Chimes at Midnight, Issue 08

Tom Ough is a journalist and researcher. He is writing a book about humanity’s efforts to address
catastrophic risks. → Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute, Issue 08

Prabhu L. Pingali is a professor at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and in the division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. He is a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the founding director of the Tata-Cornell Institute. → Beyond Staple Grains, Issue 02

Kelsey Piper is a senior writer at Vox’s Future Perfect. She writes about emerging technologies, global development, pandemics, effective altruism, and what it’ll take to make it safely to the 22nd century. → What We Owe The Future, Issue 01 A Field Guide to AI Safety, Issue 03

Alec Stapp is a co-founder of the Institute for Progress (IFP), a think tank focused on innovation policy.

Brian Potter is a senior infrastructure fellow at the Institute for Progress (IFP) and writes the Construction Physics newsletter. → Moving Past Environmental Proceduralism, Issue 05

Pradyumna Prasad authors the Bretton Goods substack and hosts the accompanying podcast. He is a first year undergraduate at the National University of Singapore. → When RAND Made Magic in Santa Monica, Issue 06

Annie Rauwerda is the creator of Depths of Wikipedia. → The Depths of Wikipedians, Issue 08

Georgia Ray is a biodefense researcher and fish enthusiast. She blogs at eukaryotewritesblog.com. → What I Won’t Eat, Issue 02 Through the Looking Glass, and What Zheludev et al. (2024) Found There, Issue 07

Matt Reynolds is a senior writer at WIRED magazine, where he writes about food, climate change and biodiversity. His first book, How to Feed the Planet Without Destroying It was published in 2021. → Salt, Sugar, Water, Zinc: How Scientists Learned to Treat the 20th Century’s Biggest Killer of Children, Issue 02 The Misery Bomb, Issue 07

Stuart Ritchie is a senior lecturer in psychiatry at King’s College London. He is the author of a book, Science Fictions: Exposing Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science, and blogs about metascience at stuartritchie.substack.com. → Rebuilding After the Replication Crisis, Issue 01

Carl Robichaud co-leads Longview Philanthropy’s programme on nuclear weapons and existential risk. For more than a decade, Carl led grantmaking in nuclear security at the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He previously worked with The Century Foundation and the Global Security Institute, where his extensive research spanned arms control, international security policy, and nonproliferation. → The Puzzle of Non-Proliferation, Issue 03

Santi Ruiz is the Senior Editor at the Institute for Progress, a non-partisan think tank focused on innovation policy. He writes Statecraft, an interview series with policymakers about how things get done. → Better Living Through Group Chemistry, Issue 06

Justin Sandefur is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. His research spans the economics of education and health, among other fields. → PEPFAR and the Costs of Cost-Benefit Analysis, Issue 05

Nicholas Schiefer is a Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic, where he spends most of his time building evaluations of large language models with the eventual aim of understanding whether they could pose catastrophic risks. → Intelligence Testing, Issue 04

Jordan Schneider is the creator of the ChinaTalk podcast and newsletter. → When RAND Made Magic in Santa Monica, Issue 06

Dan Schwarz worked at Google from 2014 to 2022. He then served as CTO of Metaculus, and is now the co-founder and CEO of FutureSearch. He writes about forecasting and AI on X at @dschwarz26. → The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google, Issue 08

David Skarbek is the Michael Targoff Professor of Political Economy at Brown University. He is the author of The Social Order of the Underworld: How Prison Gangs Govern the American Penal System and The Puzzle of Prison Order: Why Life Behind Bars Varies Around the World. → Why We Have Prison Gangs, Issue 08

Michael Skuhersky holds a PhD in neuroscience from MIT and is currently founding a nonprofit research institute focused on brain simulation. → We Can, Must, and Will Simulate Nematode Brains, Issue 09

Jesse Smith is a contractor with a background in carpentry and HVAC. He co-owns Tay River Builders, a home remodeling company, and Willard Brothers Woodcutters, an exotic lumber store and furniture shop. His company has performed over 2,000 energy retrofits. → Lies, Damned Lies, and Manometer Readings, Issue 05

Jan Sramek is the founder and CEO of California Forever. → When Was the Last Time We Built a New City?, Issue 06

George Stiffman is the author of Broken Cuisine, a forthcoming book exploring how Chinese tofus can be incorporated into western cooking. Previously, he lived in China, working in traditional tofu production and Buddhist restaurant kitchens. → America Doesn’t Know Tofu, Issue 02

Lyman Stone is the Director of Research for the population consulting firm Demographic Intelligence. → Pew Problems, Issue 04

Karthik Tadepalli is an economics PhD student at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on technology and growth in developing countries. → Want Growth? Kill Small Businesses, Issue 07

Adrian Tchaikovsky is a British science-fiction and fantasy writer known for a wide-variety of work including the Children of Time, Final Architecture, Dogs of War, Tyrant Philosophers, and Shadows of the Apt series, as well as standalone books such as Elder Race, Doors of Eden, Spiderlight, and many others. Children of Time and its series has won the Arthur C Clarke and BSFA awards, and his other works have won the British Fantasy, British Science Fiction and Sidewise Awards. → Sins of the Children, Issue 07

Daniel Treisman is a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-author with Sergei Guriev of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century. → Democracy by Mistake, Issue 05

Dietrich Vollrath is a professor and chair of the department of economics at the University of Houston. His work focuses on economic growth. He blogs at growthecon.com. → Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?, Issue 01 The Wrong Kind of City?, Issue 07

Jamie Wahls has been published in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Nature (kinda). He was nominated for the Nebula award, received George RR Martin's "Sense of Wonder" fellowship, and is a graduate of the notorious 2019 Clarion Class, the "killer bees." His ultraminimalist website can be found at jamiewahls.com, and you can follow him on Twitter at @JamieWahls. → Emotional Intelligence Amplification, Issue 03

Peter Westwick is professor of the practice in history and thematic option at the University of Southern California. He is the author of several books on the history of science and technology, the latest of which is Stealth: The Secret Contest to Invent Invisible Aircraft. → Silicon Valley’s Gold Rush Roots, Issue 06

Ben Williamson is the co-founder of Maternal Health Initiative. He is passionate about hills, goats, and ambitious ventures to build a better world. A summary of his other work and projects can be found at bcswilliamson.com. → Why We Shut Down, Issue 07

Witold Więcek is a statistician and a research consultant in global health and development. He is a recipient of an Emergent Ventures grant for his work on COVID, Consulting Director at the Development Innovation Lab at University of Chicago, and an advisor to 1Day Sooner. → From Warp Speed to 100 Days, Issue 04

Robin Wordsworth is Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at Harvard University. His research focuses on the climates of rocky planets, habitability and astrobiology. → Greening the Solar System, Issue 09

Robert Yaman previously led operations at the cultivated meat company Mission Barns, and recently started Innovate Animal Ag, a nonprofit that supports the development and adoption of new technologies that improve animal health and welfare. He blogs at robertyaman.com and can be followed on Twitter. → Is Cultivated Meat For Real?, Issue 02

John Yasuda is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, specializing in Chinese politics, bureaucratic politics, and comparative political economy. His most recent book is On Feeding the Masses: An Anatomy of Regulatory Failure in China. → China’s Policy Failures, Issue 05

Lydia You is a journalist who has written for The San Francisco Standard, Barron’s, and The Argonaut. She currently works in consumer AI startups. → Better Living Through Group Chemistry, Issue 06

Andrés Jiménez Zorrilla is the Chairman of the Board and co-founder of Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP), an organisation dedicated to improving the welfare of farmed shrimp. Prior to SWP, he worked for more than 15 years in investment banking and private equity for firms such as Morgan Stanley and Aermont Capital in the UK, Spain, Portugal, Mexico and Qatar. → Yes, Shrimp Matter, Issue 09

Devon Zuegel is a former software engineer turned real estate developer. She is building a town inspired by Chautauqua and Las Catalinas. It will be a place designed to be welcoming to multigenerational families that are looking for lifelong learning, a car-light lifestyle, neighborly connections, and a healthy lifestyle in touch with nature. → The Highway to NIMBYism, Issue 06