PROGRAMS
Visiting Fellows

Visiting Fellows

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Program details

Constellation brings together individuals and teams from nonprofit organizations, universities, AI companies, think tanks, and governments. The Visiting Fellows program allows these professionals to join Constellation's workspace, in Berkeley, CA, for three to six months. Here they can continue their work while connecting with leading researchers, exchanging ideas, and finding collaborators. We include travel, housing, meals, and office space.

Applicants should be working full-time on one of our focus areas or on something closely related. If you are uncertain about your fit or availability, we encourage you to err on the side of applying.

We accept a new cohort of Visiting Fellows each quarter.

What we provide

We’ll provide opportunities to connect and share ideas with over 100 researchers and staff working on the focus areas. We reimburse travel to and from Berkeley and provide or pay for housing for the duration of the program. Fellows will have 24/7 access to Constellation’s shared workspace. Lunch and dinner are provided at the workspace each weekday.

Application process

We are accepting applications for our Spring, Summer, and Fall 2025 cohorts. Our Spring cohort begins April 7; the deadline to apply is January 31.

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Visiting Fellows

Meet some of our 2024 Visiting Fellows:

Jaime Sevilla

Director, Epoch AI

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Sevilla is the director of Epoch AI, a research institute that investigates trends in, and builds models of, the trajectory of machine learning. He has a background in mathematics and computer science.

Sarah Schwettmann

Research Scientist at MIT CSAIL

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Sarah Schwettmann is a research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where she works on automated interpretability. She is also co-founder of Transluce, a nonprofit research lab that builds open and scalable technology for understanding AI systems. Her research reverse-engineers mechanisms underlying intelligence in artificial neural networks; the aim is to make AI systems more transparent and reliable, and to provide steerable controls for systems that shape human experience. She received a PhD in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT.

Alex Mallen

Researcher at Redwood Research

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Alex Mallen works at Redwood Research on AI control. During his visiting fellowship, he worked on the interpretability team at EleutherAI on methods of eliciting knowledge from capable AI systems when constrained by the available quantity and quality of human oversight.

Aishwarya Saxena

Co-founder, Vista Institute for AI Policy

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Dr. Saxena is a lawyer with expertise in international law, nuclear law, and energy and environmental law. During her Visiting Fellowship, her research centered on the ways in which liability and insurance can be used as policy levers to incentivize responsible behavior from LLM developers. Dr. Saxena completed her doctoral studies at the UC Berkeley School of Law. She co-founded the Vista Institute for AI Policy, which is doing academic field-building on AI law and policy.

Alan Chan

Research Fellow at the GovAI, PhD student at Mila

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Alan is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Governance of AI and final-year PhD student at Mila (Quebec AI institute). His work is concerned with how to govern the development and deployment of increasingly capable AI agents. During his visiting fellowship, Alan is working on outlining infrastructure that could help to support reliable and trustworthy use of agents.

Program details

We will provide housing and transportation within Berkeley for the duration of the program. Additionally, we recommended Astra invitees to AI Safety Support (an Australian charity) for independent research grants and they have decided to provide grants of $15k for 10 weeks of independent research to accepted Astra applicants in support of their AI Safety research.

Fellows will conduct research from Constellation’s shared office space, and lunch and dinner will be provided daily. Individual advisors will choose when and how to interact with their fellows, but most advisors will work out of the Constellation office frequently. There will be regular invited talks from senior researchers, social events with Constellation members, and opportunities to receive feedback on research. Before the program begins, we may also provide tutorial support to fellows interested in going through Constellation and Redwood Research’s MLAB curriculum.

We expect to inform all applicants whether they have progressed to the second round of applications within a week of them applying, and to make final decisions by December 1, 2023. For more details on the application process, see the FAQ below. The deadline to apply has passed.

Frequently asked questions

If your question isn't answered here, please reach out to programs@constellation.org

How is the Visiting Fellow program different from the Constellation Residency?
Can I apply to both the Visiting Fellow program and the Constellation Residency?
Who is eligible to apply?    
What if my current work doesn’t fall under one of Constellation’s focus areas?
What is the day-to-day experience like for a Visiting Fellow?
What if I’m not available to begin on the start date or need to leave the program early?
Will I receive any compensation for participating in the program?
Why is Constellation running this program?
Can I refer someone?
Can I participate in the Visiting Fellows program remotely?
Can I participate in the Visiting Fellows program more than once?