Director, Global Challenges Project

Own and run impactful workshops that introduce promising students to careers in AI safety and biosecurity.

Know someone who might be a good fit? If your referral gets hired and completes 6 months with us, we'll pay you a $5,000 referral bonus. Learn more

Global Challenges Project (GCP) is a series of workshops designed for students to explore careers in AI safety and biosecurity. Over the past few years, GCP has run dozens of three-day workshops for 400+ students, teaching participants to think critically about these fields. Most workshops have been hosted in Oxford, Boston, and Berkeley, 5-6 times per year.

Kairos is excited to announce that the leaders of GCP have asked us to host the program going forward. Kairos is a nonprofit focused on accelerating talent into AI safety and policy. In just one year, we've served over 600 people through our flagship programs:

• SPAR – the largest AI safety research fellowship, now with 300+ mentees mentored by researchers from Google Deep Mind, the UK AI Security Institute, Open Philanthropy, RAND, METR, and others.
• Pathfinder Fellowship – Helping grow the global network of AI safety groups from a few dozen to nearly 100, with $1.4m+ in funding to support their work (took over Open Phil's previous granting function for university groups)
• OASIS Workshops – Bay Area workshops for top AI safety university organizers with guest speakers from Constellation, the AI Futures Project (AI 2027), Redwood Research, ARI, and more.

Our fellows have published at NeurIPS and ICML, been featured in Time, and gone on to lead impactful work across top research labs, think tanks, and policy orgs. We've helped dozens land AI safety roles and supported over a hundred meaningful actions in the space after our programs concluded.

We see ourselves as a portfolio of highly impactful projects in a fast-evolving field, and we're just getting started. By 2026, we plan to launch even more ambitious initiatives addressing critical gaps in the ecosystem and continue rapidly scaling up our efforts.

We're looking for a Director of Global Challenges Project to own and run the program, delivering impactful workshops to promising talent. You'll also lead our OASIS workshops for top AI safety university organizers (hosted at the Constellation office), support other Kairos programming, and potentially lead new programs.

GCP workshops introduce participants to foundational concepts like scope sensitivity and taking ideas seriously before diving into AI safety or biosecurity. Each topic gets one day, featuring an intro talk you'll deliver plus presentations from notable guest speakers at top orgs in these spaces, with social activities woven throughout.

Based on the data we've seen, GCP has been quite impactful in motivating students to work on these problems. While many opportunities exist for shallow engagement with these topics, most people don't get space to think critically about their role and potential impact unless they're accepted into competitive in‑person research fellowships. We think GCP fills an important gap by giving people earlier in the pipeline a chance to engage deeply with high‑context individuals.

You'll plan workshops (sometimes multiple concurrently), thinking through all details and requirements. Rather than handling logistics yourself, you'll supervise and coordinate external contractors who execute the nitty‑gritty operational work: booking venues, managing catering, handling tech setup, and other tactical tasks. Your focus will be on event design, clear delegation, quality oversight, and ensuring contractors deliver against your specifications and timeline.

You'll review workshop applications, interview candidates, and make final selection decisions.

You'll drive recruitment efforts to ensure strong applicant pools for all workshops.

You'll contribute to the SPAR and Pathfinder programs, as well as other organizational priorities as needed.

• Triage competing priorities and focus on what…