SUMMER RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP 2024
The XLab 2024 Summer Research Fellowship (SRF) ran from June 10 to August 16. We had a cohort of 20 fellows undertaking independent research projects spanning a range of risk areas, each with mentorship from a domain expert. Seven fellows worked on nuclear security projects, eight on technical AI governance and safety, two on biosecurity, and two on climate change. The experience levels of the cohort ranged from second-year undergraduates to incoming graduate students. The final cohort was selected from more than 250 applicants.
A typical week’s programming consisted of a workshop and discussion, a peer review session, a cohort social event, and 1-1 meetings with the program manager and the student’s project mentor.
Guest speakers included:
- John Mecklin, Editor-in-Chief, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
- Kevin Frazier, Professor and Lawfare Fellow
- Nicole Kikendall, Principal Biologist, Argonne National Laboratory
- Max Lamparth, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford Existential Risk Initiative
2024 FELLOWS AND THEIR PROJECTS
AUDREY WECKWERTH
BA/MA Global Studies and International Relations, University of Chicago ‘25
Mentor: Christopher Twomey, Naval Postgraduate School
AMINA ANOWARA
Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University ‘25
Mentor: Junhong Chen, University of Chicago; Aaron Shi, University of Chicago
ARYAN SHRIVASTAVA
Mathematics, University of Chicago ‘26
Mentor: Jessica Hullman, Northwestern University
RHEA KANUPARTHI
Political Science and Mathematics, University of Chicago ‘27
Mentor: Ankit Panda, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
SIMON SISKEL
Political Science and Mathematics, University of Chicago ‘25
Mentor: Paul Bracken, Yale University
Deterrence and Deescalation: U.S. Strategies for a Nuclear-Capable Iran
ANASTASIA WEI
Physics and Data Science, Northwestern University ‘25
Mentor: Kiho Park, University of Chicago
Locating Semantic Understanding: A Study of Semantically Similar Sentences in Large Language Models
SANYU RAJAKUMAR
Computational Biology, Brown University ‘24
Mentor: Rudolf Laine, Oxford University
Eliciting Situational Awareness in Large Language Models Through Fine-Tuning
SOPHIA LLOYD-GEORGE
Physics and Philosophy, Computer Science, Brown University ‘25
Mentor: Bo Li, UIUC; Stephen Casper, MIT
KEVIN LI
MA, Committee on International Relations, University of Chicago ‘24
Mentor: Charles Glaser, MIT
LAVINIA CAVALET
BA/MA Economics and International Relations, University of Chicago ‘25
Mentor: Austin Carson, University of Chicago
JAMES ROSENBERGER
Computational and Applied Mathematics, Statistics, University of Chicago ‘26
Mentor: Mihai Anitescu, University of Chicago
Measuring Community Significance and State Vulnerability After Nuclear Winter
HELENA TRAN
Mathematics, University of California Irvine ‘25
Mentor: Olli Järviniemi, University of Helsinki
Situational Awareness and Consistency in Language Model Deception: a Simulated AI Company Assistant
ROBERT SHIN
Physics and Statistics, University of Chicago ‘27
Mentor: Carter Teplica, New York University
Investigating Fourier Representations and Learned Algorithms within Grokked Transformers
MELODY GUI
Computer Science and Philosophy, University of Southern California ‘25
Mentor: Bo Li, UIUC; Stephen Casper, MIT
Team Project: Breaking the Circuit Breaker: When does Circuit Breaking Safety Unlearning Fail?
ABHAY KATOCH
Biotechnology, Queen’s University at Kingston ‘25
Mentor: Jonathan Ozik, University of Chicago/Argonne
Modeling the Optimal Distribution of Wastewater-Based Surveillance Techniques
JIBANG WU
PhD, Computer Science, University of Chicago
Mentor: Haifeng Xu, University of Chicago
Grounded Persuasive Language Generation for Automated Marketing
AUSTIN COFFEY
MPhil in Policy Analysis, RAND Pardee ‘26
Mentor: James Steinberg, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Johns Hopkins University
JULIEN BENCHEK
Political Science, Economics, and Physics, University of Chicago ‘27
Large Language Models Exhibit Cognitive Biases in Interactive Stock Trading Scenarios