Full-time staff
Holden Karnofsky | Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director. Holden graduated from Harvard University in 2003 with a degree in Social Studies, and spent the next several years in the hedge fund industry. He co-founded GiveWell in mid-2007.
Elie Hassenfeld | Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director. Elie graduated from Columbia University in 2004 with a degree in Religion, and spent the next several years in the hedge fund industry. He co-founded GiveWell in mid-2007.
Natalie Crispin | Senior Research Analyst. Natalie graduated from Swarthmore College in 2009 with a degree in Economics. She joined GiveWell in July 2009.
Alexander Berger | Program Officer, US Policy. Alexander graduated from Stanford University in 2011 with a BA in Philosophy and an MA in Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies from the School of Education. He joined GiveWell in July 2011.
Timothy Telleen-Lawton | Senior Research Analyst. Timothy graduated from Stanford University in 2006 with a BS and MS in Earth Systems. He worked with Frontier Group and Environment America until he started with Gen110 in 2011. He joined GiveWell in April 2013.
Sean Conley | Research Analyst. Sean graduated from Oxford University in 2012 with a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He joined GiveWell in June 2013.
Josh Rosenberg | Senior Research Analyst. Josh graduated from Pomona College in 2013 with a BA in Philosophy and Economics. He joined GiveWell in July 2013.
Howie Lempel | Program Officer, Global Catastrophic Risks. Howie graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in Social Studies and Mathematical Economics. He has worked at the Brookings Institution and the Manhattan District Attorney's white collar crime bureau. He is on leave from Yale Law School, where he served as a law clerk at the ACLU National Prison Project and the Orleans Public Defenders. He joined GiveWell in August 2013.
Rebecca Raible | Research Analyst. Rebecca graduated from Pomona College in 2014 with a BA in Philosophy. She joined GiveWell in August 2014.
Tyler Heishman | Research Analyst. Tyler graduated from Bentley University in 2008 with a degree in Economics-Finance and spent the next several years in the hedge fund industry. He joined GiveWell in September 2014.
Devin Jacob | Operations Associate. Devin graduated from UC Berkeley in 2005 with a BA in History. He received an MA in History from New York University in 2012. In addition to teaching history to college students, he has worked as a bibliographer, used book seller, geology lab assistant, and commercial salmon fisherman. He joined GiveWell in September 2014.
Nick Beckstead | Research Analyst. Nick graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007 with a degree in Philosophy and Mathematics. He earned a PhD in Philosophy from Rutgers University in 2013, and then worked as a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. Nick joined GiveWell in December 2014.
David Roodman | Senior Advisor. David graduated from Harvard College in 1990 after majoring in theoretical math. He spent eight years at the Worldwatch Institute, rising to Senior Researcher, and eleven at the Center for Global Development, where he became a Senior Fellow. David spent academic year 1998-99 in Vietnam on a Fulbright. In 2013, he served the Gates Foundation as a Senior Economic Advisor. David has written two books, The Natural Wealth of Nations: Harnessing the Market for the Environment and Due Diligence: An Impertinent Inquiry into Microfinance. David joined GiveWell in February 2015.
Helen Toner | Research Analyst. Helen graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2014 with a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a DipLang in Arabic. While studying, she worked at Vesparum Capital, a corporate finance startup. She joined GiveWell in March 2015.
Sophie Monahan | Research Analyst. Sophie graduated from MIT in 2011 with a degree in Philosophy and Physics. She spent one year at Harvard Management Company and two years in the Philosophy PhD program at the University of Michigan before joining GiveWell in May 2015.
Laura Muñoz | Operations Associate. Laura graduated from Pomona College in 2014 with a BA in Environmental Analysis: Society, Development and Economics. She joined GiveWell in May 2015.
Catherine Hollander | Outreach Associate. Catherine graduated from Yale University with a BA in history. She has worked as a journalist covering economics and health care for National Journal, and as editorial director for Beacon, an independent funding platform for journalism. She joined GiveWell in May 2015.
Luke Muehlhauser | Research Analyst. Luke studied psychology at the University of Minnesota but left in favor of self-study. He was Executive Director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute from November 2011 through May 2015. Luke joined GiveWell in June 2015.
Andrew Martin | Research Analyst. Andrew graduated from the University of North Carolina in 2009 with a BA in English and received an MPA from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2015. He joined GiveWell in August 2015.
Leon Zhang | Research Analyst. Leon graduated from MIT in 2015 with a degree in theoretical math. He joined GiveWell in August 2015.
Chloe Cockburn | Program Officer, Criminal Justice Reform. Chloe graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Classics and Visual Art, and has a JD from Harvard Law School. She has worked at the ACLU, the Vera Institute, and for the civil rights law firm of Neufeld, Scheck and Brustin, and clerked for Judge Sifton of the Eastern District of New York. She joined GiveWell in August 2015.
Claire Zabel | Research Analyst. Claire graduated from Stanford University in 2015 with a BS and MS in Earth Systems. She joined GiveWell in August 2015.
Emma Trefethen | Research Analyst. Emma graduated from Princeton University in 2015 with a degree in Mathematics. She joined GiveWell in September 2015.
Tracy Williams | Research Analyst. Tracy graduated from Stanford University in 2015 with a BA in Political Science. He joined GiveWell in September 2015.
Nicole Ross | Operations Associate. Nicole graduated from Pomona College in 2014 with a BA in Philosophy. Previously, she worked as a Staff Assistant at Cedars-Sinai’s Center for Healthcare Ethics. She joined GiveWell in October 2015.
Lewis Bollard | Program Officer, Farm Animal Welfare. Lewis graduated from Harvard University in 2009 with a BA in Social Studies, and Yale Law School in 2013 with a JD. He joined GiveWell in October 2015.
Karalyn Lacey | Operations Associate. Karalyn graduated from UC Berkeley in 2015 with a BA in Economics. She joined GiveWell in November 2015.
Chelsea Tabart | Research Analyst. Chelsea graduated from the University of Queensland, Australia with a BComm in 2008 and from the University of Sydney Law School with an LLB in 2011. She has worked as an Associate to Justice Heydon at the High Court of Australia, and as a commercial and community lawyer. In 2015, she received a Master of Public Policy from the University of Oxford. She joined GiveWell in December 2015.
Sarah Ward | Research Analyst. Sarah graduated from Oberlin College with a BA in Politics and from UC Berkeley with a JD. She worked as an IP litigator and commercial attorney at law firms in the Bay Area, then specialized in commercial and licensing transactions at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA. Sarah joined GiveWell in January 2016.
Daniel Dewey | Program Officer, Potential Risks from Advanced Artificial Intelligence. Daniel graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008 with a BS in Computer Science and Philosophy. He subsequently worked at Google and the Future of Humanity Institute, contracted with the Future of Life Institute and the Centre for Effective Altruism, and started working with GiveWell in 2015. He joined GiveWell full-time in February 2016.
Ahmed Alkhatib | Administrative Assistant. Ahmed graduated from the University of San Francisco in 2011 with a BS in Marketing. He has experiences in strategic planning, international relations, and nonprofit administration. Ahmed is passionate about humanitarian aid provision and aviation. He joined GiveWell in March 2016.
Andrew Nevarez | Administrative Assistant. Andrew graduated from UCLA in 2015 with a degree in Anthropology and a minor in Global Studies. He joined GiveWell in March 2016.
Rocio Alba Navarro | Research Analyst. Rocio graduated from St. John’s College in 2008 with a BA in Liberal Arts, and from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College in 2015 with an MS in Public Policy and Management. She has worked as a Bilingual Technical Editor, a Business English Teacher abroad, a Bilingual Legal Assistant, and in strategy and operations at a food innovation start-up. She joined GiveWell in April 2016.
Jaime Yassif | Program Officer, Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness. Jaime holds a Biophysics Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, an MA in Science and Security from the King's College London War Studies Department and a BA in Biology from Swarthmore College. She was previously a Science and Technology Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Defense, where she oversaw the Cooperative Thread Reduction Program. Jaime has also worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Connecting Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Federation of American Scientists, and the Tsinghua University Institute for International Studies. She joined GiveWell in May 2016.
Daniel Martin-Alarcon | Scientific Advisor. Daniel Martin-Alarcon investigates potential focus areas in the life sciences for the Open Philanthropy Project. Previously, he worked on creating molecular tools for synthetic biology. He holds a PhD in Biological Engineering from MIT and a BS in Chemical Engineering from New Mexico State University. Daniel joined GiveWell in June 2016.
Board of Directors
Tom Rutledge (Chair) is in the Structured Credit Group at Magnetar Capital, an Evanston, Illinois-based alternative investment manager. During his career, he has also worked in capital markets businesses at JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and Merrill Lynch.
Holden Karnofsky (Secretary) see bio above.
Elie Hassenfeld see bio above.
Greg Jensen is co-Chief Investment Officer at a major hedge fund, the former supervisor of both Holden and Elie, and one of GiveWell's major financial supporters.
Tim Ogden (Vice-Chair) is the former Chief Knowledge Officer of Geneva Global, a philanthropic consulting firm devoted to results-oriented grantmaking in the poorest regions of the world. He currently is managing director of the Financial Access Initiative at NYU and an Executive Partner at Sona Partners, a thought leadership communications firm.
Cari Tuna (Treasurer) is the President of Good Ventures, a San Francisco-based charitable foundation. (See our policy on working arrangement between GiveWell and Good Ventures.)
Phil Steinmeyer spent much of his career in the software industry (primarily games), including founding PopTop Software. He is now an investor.
Brigid Slipka is a fundraiser and a writer based in Washington, DC. She has over ten years experience in nonprofit management and philanthropy.
Rob Reich is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. He is Co-Director of Stanford's Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society and is the Director of its Program on Ethics in Society.
Jake Gibson is a mentor and angel investor for early stage startups. Previously, he co-founded NerdWallet and served as COO for its first four years.
Julia Wise is a social worker based in Boston, MA. She writes about effective altruism at Giving Gladly.
See a list of former board members here.
