About CEA

Meet the team

Executive Team

Angelina Li

Data Analyst
Angelina works on data analytics and data operations for the Executive team. Previously, she worked on content for the EA Global conference series and, before CEA, as an economic consultant at Analysis Group. Angelina founded the EA group at Wellesley College, where she studied economics and computer science, and has been interested in EA since 2014.

Oscar Howie

Chief of Staff
Oscar supports the work of CEA's Executive team. Before joining CEA, Oscar was Chief of Staff to a member of the UK House of Lords. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at the University of Oxford.

Zach Robinson

CEO
Zach joined as CEA's CEO in February 2024. He also serves as the CEO of CEA's fiscal sponsor, Effective Ventures Foundation USA. Previously, he was Chief of Staff at Open Philanthropy (OP), where he managed communications and grantmaking teams, developed organisation-wide policies to help OP scale, and identified new Global Health and Wellbeing cause areas to increase OP's giving. Prior to his work at OP, he was the director of product and strategy for startup Ivy Research Council (now Veris Insights) and worked as a management consultant at Bain and Company.

Events Team

Amy Willey Labenz

Head of Events
Amy manages a team of nine people to put on a wide variety of highly-impactful events, ranging from large conferences to small, specialised retreats. Her role includes managing our three program leads, budgeting and fundraising, and stakeholder management. Previously, Amy was Chief Operating Officer of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, where she was also Executive Producer of The Singularity Summit. Amy earned a Juris Doctor degree from New York University after graduating summa cum laude from Alma College with a BA in foreign service.

Arthur Malone

EAGx Coordinator
Arthur Malone supports the independent organisers who run EAGx conferences. Previously he worked in EA community building as part of Effective Altruism New York City. He also has management, operations, and event planning experience with multiple small businesses, and assisted research at the Salk Institute. He has a degree in Animal Physiology and Neuroscience from the University of California San Diego.

David Solar

Events Associate
David works on event logistics and communications for the Partner Events team. He has also worked as a Project Manager for Good Impressions, where he ran marketing campaigns for high-impact organisations. Previously, David founded an e-commerce business and managed government tenders in Chile. He co-founded UC Chile's Effective Altruism chapter, AI Safety Initiative, and Alternative Protein Project. David holds a degree in Economics and Management from UC Chile.

Frances Lorenz

Events Associate
Frances works on communications, administration, and volunteer coordination for EA Global events. Previously, she worked on community building in the AI Safety space. She holds a degree in Integrated Science with a concentration in Math and Statistics from McMaster University, located in Canada.

Ivan Burduk

Senior Events Associate
Ivan works on systems and communications for the EA Global conference series. Before joining CEA, Ivan was a community builder for Effective Altruism Australia and New Zealand. He has a BE(Hons) in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and a BSc in Physics and Chemistry from the University of Auckland, where he co-founded the EA group in 2015.

Jordan Pieters

EA Global Content Coordinator
Jordan manages all talks, workshops, and meetups at EA Global conferences. Previously, Jordan was involved in various Effective Altruism community-building projects, most recently running the Effective Altruism Oxford group. He also has experience in operations management. Originally from South Africa, Jordan holds a degree in Philosophy and Religious Studies from the University of Cape Town.

Nikolai Bjork

Events Associate
Niko works on event logistics and communications for the Partner Events team. Previously, he worked in fundraising and data management at a human services nonprofit. Niko holds a degree in Sociology from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Ollie Base

Chief of Staff (Events team)
Ollie supports Amy Labenz in managing the CEA events team, providing support on project management, impact analysis, strategy, and hiring. Previously, he worked as a Research Analyst at Longview Philanthropy, a non-profit which advises major philanthropists focused on safeguarding the long-term future. Before Longview, Ollie was an EA group organiser at the University of Warwick and in Cologne, Germany. He holds a first-class degree in philosophy with psychology from the University of Warwick.

Robert Harling

EA Global Program Lead
Robert leads the EA Global team. Previously, he worked as an EA community builder in Cambridge, UK, and as an economic consultant in London. He holds an Integrated Master's degree in Mathematics from the University of Warwick.

Sarah Gokhale

EA Global Project Manager
Sarah works on project management and production for EA Global events. Previously, she worked in marketing and communications in the clean energy sector, and as a producer at an advertising agency. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Shelby McIntyre

Project Manager
Shelby does project management and event production for the Partner Events team. Before joining CEA, she worked for eight years in business consulting, specialising in Agile team leadership. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Washington with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science, and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Limoges (France) with a Bachelor's degree in Economics.

Sophie Thomson

Partner Events Program Lead
Sophie leads the Partner Events team, a new program within the CEA Events team which collaborates with subject matter experts to run high-impact events. Prior to joining the Centre for Effective Altruism, she was a Business Analyst for a specialist risk advisory firm and Head of Operations at Longview Philanthropy. She has a first-class degree in Liberal Arts with a major in Philosophy from King’s College London.

Groups Team

Alex Dial

Groups Support Associate
Alex leads broad group support programs and contributes to system improvements within CEA’s Groups team. Before joining CEA, Alex organised the Effective Altruism group at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science.

Alex Rahl-Kaplan

CBG Associate
Alex supports the community-building grants team by researching and trialing programmatic improvements and providing operational assistance for the program and its grantees. They previously worked as a full-time, (CBG-funded) Effective Altruism community organiser in New York City and as a local coordinator for Tesla Energy Operations.

Cian Mullarkey

Virtual Programs Associate
Cian works on strategy and operations for the Virtual Programs team. Previously, he ran the Effective Altruism groups at Trinity College Dublin and New York University, where he studied Mathematics and Economics. He also worked as a program manager for Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative.

Jemima Jones

University Groups Support Associate
Jemima helps run the University Groups Team's mentorship program. Before joining CEA, she interned for the Maternal Health Initiative, the Global Challenges Project, and a member of the UK House of Lords. She ran the Effective Altruism group at Durham University, where she studied Chinese Studies.

Jessica McCurdy

Head of Groups
Jessica leads the Groups team at CEA. She manages subteams focused on university EA groups, EA virtual programs, and city and national EA groups. The Groups team supports over 300 groups across all populated continents and has funnelled several thousand people through virtual programs in the past few years. Before joining CEA, she studied Cognitive Science at Yale University. There, she led Yale EA, helped seed new EA groups, and created trainings and workshops for group organisers.

Joris Pijpers

University Groups Team Lead
Joris creates scalable systems and programs to help support effective altruism university groups around the world. Before joining CEA, Joris organised EAGxRotterdam, and co-founded and chaired the Positive Impact Society Erasmus. He holds a BSc degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences from Erasmus University College in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he majored in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

Naomi Nederlof

CBG Manager
Naomi leads grant evaluations and provides support for the community-building grants program. Alongside working for CEA, she is the executive director of the Swiss Existential Risk Initiative. Prior to CEA, Naomi was the director of EA Switzerland and EA Geneva and worked for various non-profits. She holds a BSc in Psychology and an MSc in Culture, Organisation, and Management.

Operations Team

Ander Morgan

Salesforce Admin
Ander initially worked with EV Ops, supporting CEA’s Salesforce instance, before transitioning to an in-house role at CEA. His work primarily supports the systems efforts of the Events and Groups teams. Prior to joining CEA, Ander held various roles at a youth homelessness charity. He studied Philosophy at the University of Manchester, earning a distinction for his Master’s dissertation focused on practical ethics.

People Operations

Caitlin Elizondo

Head of People Operations
Caitlin works to improve staff wellbeing and productivity, and manages CEA's recruiting and onboarding. She has a background in operations work from her time with the Frameworks Institute in DC and working in academic administration as a graduate student at Georgetown. She has a BA in linguistics from Haverford College and an MS in sociolinguistics from Georgetown University.

Hillary Grills

Project Manager, People Operations
Hillary supports the People Operations team in transforming their systems to increase efficiency and usability. Before joining CEA, she worked on corporate sporting events in North America for clients such as Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Hockey League (NHL), as well as Chinese lantern festivals in Europe. She also helps run the EA Ottawa group and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Production from Toronto Metropolitan University.

Rika Gabriel

People Operations Senior Associate
Rika supports CEA's recruitment processes and internal systems. Previously, she served as the Outreach Manager at Ambitious Impact, where she scouted impact-driven entrepreneurs through both digital and in-person marketing efforts. She has interned at global health startups, including the Lead Exposure Elimination Project, Family Empowerment Media, Ansh, and Healthy Futures Global, where she supported recruitment, research, and communications. Additionally, she founded EA Blue and holds a degree in Psychology from Ateneo de Manila University.

Online Team

Agnes Stenlund

Senior Product Designer
Agnes designs the EA Forum and other digital products at CEA. She previously worked as a product designer at Intercom, Basecamp and Amie.so. Before she started designing software she worked as a photographer.

JP Addison

Head of Online & Interim Executive Program Manager
JP previously worked on the team as an engineer and Engineering Manager. He joined CEA from an aerospace startup where he wrote data processing code. He also co-founded the South Bay Effective Altruism meetup group. Before that, he was a research assistant writing code for simulations of quantum computers. He holds a BS in physics from Georgia Tech.

Ollie Etherington

Senior Software Engineer
Ollie works as a senior software engineer for the EA Forum. He previously worked as an engineer for a popular chess website, and before that as a musician and music teacher. He holds a BSc in mathematics and physics from The Open University.

Sarah Cheng

Interim EA Forum Project Lead
Sarah graduated from MIT with a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a minor in Philosophy. She worked at Care.com and then at BetterLesson, supporting educators across the United States.

Toby Tremlett

Content Manager
Toby runs the EA Newsletter and the non-engineering side of the EA Forum, and facilitates a range of other content projects. Before starting at CEA, he worked as the research assistant for Richard Fisher's book The Long View, and (amongst other things) as a writer for organisations such as CAIS and Non-Trivial. Toby holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Warwick, where he was Vice President of the Effective Altruism Society.

Will Howard

Software Engineer
Will is a software engineer on the EA Forum. Before joining CEA he previously worked as a developer for a supply chain logistics startup. He holds a BA in Physics from the University of Oxford.

Community Health Team

Catherine Low

Community Liaison
Catherine is one of the people community members can contact about problems they've noticed or experienced in the EA community.
She is also an advisor for EA Funds and is on the board of Magnify Mentoring and Effective Altruism New Zealand Charitable Trust. Before joining CEA, Catherine managed the Students for High-Impact Charity program and taught science, physics, and ethics at the high school level. She was also heavily involved in EA community building in New Zealand and Australia. Catherine holds a PhD in physics from the University of Melbourne. Outside of work, Catherine's hobbies include kayaking and trail running.
You can contact Catherine via this form (you'll be anonymous by default).

Chana Messinger

Deputy Head of Community Health and Special Projects
Chana works on proactive investigations for issues in the EA community. Before joining CEA, Chana was a high school maths teacher in Pittsburgh, New York, and London. She has also contracted for the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago and an MA from Columbia University.
You can contact Chana via this form (with the option of being anonymous).

Charlotte Darnell

Community Liaison
Charlotte is one of the people community members can contact about challenges or bad experiences they have in the community. Before joining the Community Health team, Charlotte worked on the Events team and has also worked on various community-building projects outside of CEA, such as EAGxOxford 2022, UK high school outreach, and university group events. She studied History and Modern Languages at the University of Exeter.
You can contact Charlotte via this form (you'll be anonymous by default).

Eve McCormick

Community Health Project Manager and Senior Assistant
Eve is responsible for our internal systems, as well as supporting the work of Nicole and other members of the team. Before joining CEA, she was the co-director of EA Cambridge. Eve holds a degree in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from the University of Cambridge.

Julia Wise

Community Liaison
Julia is one of the contact people when community members find themselves in challenging situations. She writes about effective altruism, parenting, and other topics at Otherwise. She was president of Giving What We Can from 2017-2020. Before joining CEA, Julia was a social worker, and studied sociology at Bryn Mawr College.
You can contact Julia via this form (you'll be anonymous by default).

Lisanne van den Bosch

Community Health Team Assistant and Systems Associate
Lisanne supports Catherine and other members of the team and conducts analyses on our work. Before joining our team, Lisanne worked as a contractor on CEA’s Groups team and has also been a board member at the Positive Impact Society Erasmus. She holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Erasmus University Rotterdam and a master's in Global Mental Health from Trinity College Dublin.

Nicole Ross

Head of Community Health and Special Projects
Nicole leads the Community Health team, conducts analysis on broad community health questions, and provides internal consultation to other teams within CEA. Nicole has also coordinated with other EA organisations and projects across a broad range of areas, such as communications and politics. She was previously a trustee of EV US. Before joining CEA, Nicole worked at the Open Philanthropy Project, GiveWell, and the Center for Healthcare Ethics at Cedars-Sinai.
You can contact Nicole via this form (you'll be anonymous by default).

Communications

Emma Richter

Communications Lead
Emma supports communications efforts across EA cause areas and the community. Before joining CEA, Emma worked in non-profit communications and academic operations. She holds an MA in the social sciences and a BA in English and History.

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dedicated to doing good

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