The Effective Thesis Network

We connect students with impact-driven academics and professionals who offer personalised advice, mentorship, and guidance to help shape high-impact thesis projects and career paths.

institutions our experts come from

Why join our Expert Network?

Guide the next generation working to solve the world’s most pressing problems

Mentor bright, motivated students and help guide their research and career paths while supporting the next generation of impact-driven thinkers.

Collaborate with exceptional students

Partner with us to connect with outstanding students who can contribute to research projects and initiatives aligned with your mission.

Join a global community focused on impact

Connect with experts and impact-driven students from around the world working to address complex global problems.

Flexible commitment

Contribute in ways that fit your schedule - from mentoring students and reviewing research ideas to collaborating on projects

Two hands holding soil with a sprouting green plant and floating hearts around.

Who we’re looking for

We welcome experts, academics and professionals from a wide range of disciplines working to solve important global challenges. Example focus areas include:

AI safety and ethics

Global health and pandemic preparedness

Climate change mitigation

Global priorities and cause prioritisation research

Biosecurity and existential risk

Economic development and poverty alleviation

Animal welfare and alternative proteins 

Ideal candidates will have:

A Master’s, PhD, or equivalent experience in your field

A track record of impactful work or research

A passion for mentoring and guiding early-career students

A commitment to working on important problems and creating meaningful positive impact

Ways you can contribute as an expert

We welcome different forms of involvement depending on your availability and interests.
Suggest impactful research questions
Share important research questions or project ideas that could become high-impact thesis topics for students.
Partner on a fellowship projects
Collaborate with us to host a research project within your organisation or initiative as part of our Fellowship.
Mentor students
Provide guidance to students working on related topics - from one-off advising calls to ongoing mentorship throughout their thesis.
Speak or share your expertise
Join webinars, workshops, or discussion groups to share your expertise with our community.
Collaborate on resources
Contribute to guides, workshops, or other materials that help students pursue impactful research and careers.
Join The Expert NetworkApply to be a Fellowship MentorSubmit a High-Impact Research Question

Frequently asked questions

What kinds of experts are you looking for?
We welcome researchers, practitioners, and professionals who can help students explore and pursue high-impact career paths. This might include providing guidance on impactful fields or roles, sharing insights from your own experience, connecting students with opportunities, or helping them understand how their research and skills can contribute to solving pressing global problems.
Can I also provide career advising?
Definitely. We encourage experts to support students not just in refining their research, but also in identifying career trajectories where their skills and findings can create the greatest impact. You can choose to focus on research guidance, career advising, or both.
What is the expected duration of involvement?
There’s no fixed term - some experts engage once per  cycle, while others stay connected across multiple years. You can adjust your level of involvement at any time.
Is this a paid position?
Currently, expert roles are voluntary. We deeply value your contribution and aim to make the experience rewarding through networking opportunities, recognition, and the impact of your guidance.
Can I specify the types of projects I'd like to be involved with?
Absolutely! During the application process, you'll have the opportunity to indicate your preferences for involvement.

Meet our experts

Giulia Malerbi
Giulia Malerbi

Giulia is the Head of Global Policy at Aquatic Life Institute. She advises students interested in animal welfare, international policy, and legislative advocacy. Her work focuses on integrating welfare considerations into global food system reforms, engaging with policymakers, and advancing protections for farmed and wild-caught animals through legal and corporate initiatives.

Jeff Zhou
Jeff Zhou

Jeff is the Head of Investor Relations and Portfolio Operations at Untapped Ventures. His research interests focus on the evolving role of technology in society, particularly responsible AI governance, cybersecurity, and ethics.

Parendi Birdie
Parendi Birdie

Parendi Birdie is the Head of Brand Strategy at Mission Barns. She advises students who are interested in both technical and non-technical areas of the field of cellular agriculture.

Aditya Gilra
Aditya Gilra

Aditya is affiliated with the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) in Amsterdam, Netherlands. His research spans foundational research, improving institutional decision-making, and AI safety and policy, with specific interests in control theory, reinforcement learning, neuroscience, and economics. Aditya is particularly focused on human-aligned artificial intelligence and the governance of AI. He operates within the disciplines of computer and information sciences, economics and business, and psychology and cognitive sciences. Aditya is sympathetic to the Effective Altruism community and is willing to supervise master's students interested in applying theoretical, computational, or machine learning methods to address societal issues.

Maira Camila Duque
Maira Camila Duque

Maira is an Assistant Professor with expertise in gender studies, climate migration, and peace. She is passionate about supporting students who aspire to make a positive impact on the world through innovative analyses and promoting solutions. Maira offers guidance in various areas, including AI safety and policy, altruistic decision-making, and improving institutional decision-making. With strong communication skills, she provides constructive feedback on written and oral work, suggests relevant research topics, and is open to frequent collaboration with students. Maira is available for contact up to three times a week and is eager to expand her impact by working within a larger network. She also offers formal supervision for students in her areas of expertise.

Morris Gheeyong Ong
Morris Gheeyong Ong

Morris is a Board Director with a disciplinary background in psychology, specializing in the study of human behavior within research contexts. His research focuses on understanding the impact of integrity erosion and moral hypocrisy on human behavior. Morris is particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches that integrate data science, behavioral economics, and policy analysis to address complex global challenges. He is eager to support undergraduate and graduate students with a strong foundation in global health and wellbeing, particularly those interested in applied mental health research and the effective altruism community. Morris offers a range of support from one-off consultations to ongoing mentorship and is available for contact twice a month.

Jobst Heitzig
Jobst Heitzig

Jobst is a Lab Lead at a major academic research institution, specializing in game theory, complex networks theory, dynamical systems theory, agent-based modeling, and environmental economics. His work also encompasses social choice, general topology, and environmental ethics. Jobst's research is particularly relevant to AI safety, improving institutional decision-making, and addressing global catastrophic risks, including climate change solutions. He is available to support graduate and PhD students with a solid understanding of formal methods, offering one-off calls to discuss their research. He is open to being contacted up to twice a month and has joined Effective Thesis's expert network to provide guidance in these critical areas.

Aanu Busari
Aanu Busari

Aanu is a graduate student with a deep interest and expertise in AI, machine learning, cybersecurity, and the technology of the future, along with a strong focus on biosecurity and environmental sciences. Aanu's research spans a broad range of critical areas, including AI safety, biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, and understanding progress and change. Aanu is eager to support students in science, engineering, technology, mathematics, environment, and health fields, offering calls, feedback, and mentorship. Aanu is also open to providing both internal and external supervision for students working on projects in these vital research directions. Available for contact 2-3 times a month, Aanu is enthusiastic about engaging in meaningful exchanges with students and guiding them toward impactful research.

Rana Qarooni
Rana Qarooni

Rana holds a PhD in Psychology on the capacity limits of face detection and is now a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Psychology at the University of York. Rana’s current research focuses on the cognitive factors that can lead to, or increase, existential risk, including the prevalence of omnicidal tendencies. Rana also runs an EA discussion group for psychology early career researchers focused on the role, use, and need for psychological research within effective altruism.

Dr. Meghan Barrett
Dr. Meghan Barrett

Meghan is an insect neuroethologist and physiologist and the Director of the Insect Welfare Research Society. She is the globally-recognized leader of the nascent field of farmed insect welfare. She advises students on insect sentience and welfare in farmed, wild, and research settings.

Dr. Ryan Dwyer
Dr. Ryan Dwyer

Ryan is a senior researcher at the Happier Lives Institute, where he investigates the best interventions to improve global happiness. He previously completed a PhD in Social Psychology, helping conduct the first randomized controlled trial to investigate the impact of cash transfers for people experiencing homelessness. His research has also explored the causal impact of cash transfers on happiness, the relationship between happiness and meaning, and the impact of technology on social life.

Dr. Sean Lawrence
Dr. Sean Lawrence

Sean's research background and PhD is in aerospace engineering. As co-founder of High Impact Engineers he investigates ways for engineers to maximise their positive social impact across many research areas, including AI safety, biosecurity, nuclear security, civilisation resilience, climate change, alternative proteins and global health.

Christian Ruhl
Christian Ruhl

Christian is a Senior Researcher at Founders Pledge. Some of the research areas he is particularly interested in include the effects of emerging technologies on international security, the governance of global risks, and probabilistic forecasting and its applications. He is also fund manager for the Global Catastrophic Risks Fund.

Dr. Faraz Harsini
Dr. Faraz Harsini

Faraz is a Senior Scientist at GFI specialising in cultivated meat bioprocessing, and CEO at Allied Scholars for Animal Protection, a nonprofit that supports students to fight both human and non-human oppression in universities. His interests span alternative proteins, antibiotic resistance, pandemic prevention, public health and diseases prevention and alternatives to animal testing.

Jessica Wen
Jessica Wen

Jessica is the co-founder of High Impact Engineers. She has a masters in Materials Science from the University of Oxford, and a background in materials science and mechanical engineering in industry. Jessica works with engineers and engineering students to support them in pursuing careers and projects that aim to improve the world.

Stephen Casper
Stephen Casper

Stephen (Cas) is a Ph.D student at MIT in Computer Science in the Algorithmic Alignment Group advised by Dylan Hadfield-Menell. His main research focus is in developing tools for more interpretable and robust AI by studying interpretability, adversaries, and diagnostic tools in deep learning.

Ren Ryba
Ren Ryba

Ren is a research scientist at Animal Ask experienced in animal advocacy research, and with particular expertise in quantitative research involving data analysis, statistical programming, and biological and economic modelling. During their PhD and in their subsequent research they have explored fisheries, effective philanthropy, and animal sentience.

Prof. Kyle Smith
Prof. Kyle Smith

Kyle is an Assistant Professor of Accounting in the Adkerson School of Accountancy at Mississippi State University. His interests include donor usage of accounting information, nonprofit tax issues, and managerial decision making. He advises students on research relating to the decision-making of charitable donors.

Valentin Klotzbücher
Valentin Klotzbücher

Valentin Klotzbücher is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Freiburg's Department of Economics. His expertise lies in economics and quantitative social science, with a broad interest in institutional economics, development, and health. Valentin's recent research explores crisis helpline calls as a complementary measure of mental and social distress. He is passionate about global health and development, mental and physical health, and improving institutional decision-making. Valentin offers feedback on topic proposals and helps refine ideas, particularly for empirical projects, drawing on his experience supervising economics bachelor and master students.

Aleš Flídr
Aleš Flídr

Aleš is a Biosecurity Program Associate at Convergent Research. Previously, he was research assistant to Dr Eric Drexler at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford and the youngest research assistant hired by DeepMind.

Noga Aharony
Noga Aharony

Noga is a PhD student currently working on how to better represent data from DNA sequencing. She is also a recipient of the Open Philanthropy Project Early Career Scholarship. She advises students interested in reducing catastrophic risks from engineered pathogens.

David Moss
David Moss

David is the Principal Research Manager at Rethink Priorities and a research fellow at Canterbury Christ Church University. David advises students interested in moral psychology and empirical social science.

Richard Burns
Richard Burns

Dr. Bruns is an Economist and Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, specializing in cost-benefit analysis of public health, food, and biosecurity policies.

At the FDA, Dr. Bruns wrote the regulatory impact analysis for the trans fat ban, gluten-free labeling, and a rule on stopping terrorist attacks using foods as a vector.

At CHS, his current focus is on indoor air quality, and I have worked on cause prioritization, the bioeconomy, critical infrastructure resilience, misinformation, food security, and medical workforce issues. He is interested in researching disability weights for non-pharmaceutical interventions and other social conditions.

Maxime Stauffer
Maxime Stauffer

Maxime is a co-founder and chief executive officer of the Simon Institute for Longterm Governance. Max advises students in political science, behavioural sciences, mathematics and physics interested in improving political decision making.

Dr. S.J. Beard
Dr. S.J. Beard

SJ is an academic programme manager and senior researcher at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University. Previously, they were a postdoctoral research fellow with the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford and have a PhD in Philosophy from the London School of Economics.

Prof. David Denkenberger
Prof. David Denkenberger

David Denkenberger co-founded and directs the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED). He has 65 peer-reviewed publications and is the third most prolific author in the field of existential and global catastrophic risk.

Vanessa Kosoy
Vanessa Kosoy

Vanessa is a research associate at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. She advises students in mathematics, computer science and other quantitative degrees interested in human aligned artificial intelligence research.

Cassidy Nelson
Cassidy Nelson

Cassidy Nelson is Co-Lead of the Biosecurity Research Group at the Future of Humanity Institute. She advises students on health security, biosecurity and pandemic prevention.

Philip Trammel
Philip Trammel

Philip Trammel is a research affiliate at the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford University. He advises students on applications of economic theory to global priorities research.

Use your thesis to launch an impactful career

Whether you’re a student, expert, or organistion, join us in supporting the next generation of people using research and their careers to tackle global challenges.

Research areas diagram with six blocks: Empirical evaluation of AI alignment techniques; Cost-effectiveness analysis of interventions and philanthropic grantmaking; Designing pandemic response strategies for low-resource settings; Improving farmed animal welfare through policy advocacy; Testing high-impact behavioral change campaigns for animal welfare; Designing evidence-based strategies for AI governance advocacy; and Evaluating novel biosecurity risk reduction interventions.Five research areas: AI alignment with frontier models, cost-effectiveness of philanthropic interventions, pandemic response for low-resource settings, behavioral change for animal welfare, and biosecurity risk reduction.