What's Happening in Australia

By Bradley Tjandra, Nathan Sherburn @ 2022-11-07T01:03 (+105)

EDIT: Since first publishing I've added the Animals and Longtermism network, Animal Ask, High Impact Medicine Australia. Thanks to those groups!

Introduction

Crikey! There's a lot going on in 'Straya right now! 

There are a lot of new and exciting projects happening in Australia— we want to share some of that with the wider community and talk about how you can be involved.

Projects in Australia

Much of the effective altruist aligned work being done in Australia involves working remotely with the international community, at organisations already known by the international community. Given that, we decided to focus on projects which are being at least partially led by Australians.

If you’re leading an exciting project in Australia, please send me a message with a completed copy of this template and I can add it into the post. 

• AI Safety Australia & New Zealand
• AI Safety Support
• Animals and Longtermism network
• Animal Ask
• EA Pathfinder
• Foundations for Tomorrow
• Giving What We Can
• Good Ancestors Project (Sydney Office)
• Good Ancestors Project (Operations)
• Good Ancestors Project (Policy)
• High Impact Engineers
• High Impact Medicine Australia
• High Impact Recruitment
• Insights for Impact
• Lead Exposure Elimination Project
• Quantifying Uncertainty in GiveWell CEAs
• Ready Research
• Sentience Institute

AI Safety Australia & New Zealand

What do we do?

We’re organising a number of community building programs:

1. AI Sydney Fellowship - A fellowship for aspiring AI researchers in Australian/New Zealand to meet and collaborate on their projects.
2. Sydney Retreat -  A weekend getaway near Maroubra Beach and trying out a range of activities to facilitate connection, ideation, sharing, and, of course, alignment.
3. Informal chats - Discussion group for people who have already completed the AGI Safety Fundamentals technical course or otherwise have an equivalent level of knowledge.

About the team 

• Chris Leong - Main Organiser. Previously interned at Non-Linear.
• Yanni Kyriacos - Marketing & Communications Lead. Recently employed at Spark Wave as Head of Marketing. 10 years of experience as a marketing strategist.
• Mark Carauleanu - Intern. Previously Admin Support at CEA, participated in the SERI Summer Fellowship and MLSS.
• Jenna - Operations Contractor. Also Design & Communications Consultant at Fortify Health and Cofounder of EA Canberra.

Call to action

Reach out to chris [at] aisafetysupport.org.

More links 

Join the Facebook group

Nudge competition 

AI Safety Support

What do we do?

Providing support services to early career, independent and transitioning AI alignment researchers. This is done through career coaching, events, training programs and fiscal sponsorship.

About the team 

• JJ Hepburn - Cofounder and CEO based in Sydney
• Rachel Williams - COO based in Colorado Springs
• Frances Lorenz - Operations Manager based in Boston
• Shay Gestal - Health Coach based in Berlington

Call to action 

• Signup for our mailing list
• Join the AI Alignment slack
• Apply for coaching
• Checkout our free Health Coaching
• Contact us about fiscal sponsorships

More links

aisafetysupport.org

Animals and Longtermism network

What do we do? 
We are a community of individuals who are interested in the intersection between non-human animals and longtermism. We host an online discussion community, and we are currently working on starting a new organisation with paid staff working on both foundational research and concrete interventions in this space.

About the team

We are a network of communities, though Ren Springlea (based in Adelaide, South Australia) is leading this initiative.

Ren Springlea - I am leading this initiative. I have overseen some background research on this topic, and I am currently securing funding to hire our first full-time staff member. My full-time work is as an animal advocacy researcher at Animal Ask, and I have particular expertise in biology, economics, and quantitative analysis. My PhD covered fisheries, effective philanthropy, and animal sentience, and I have experience working in government policy and conducting research and strategy for the Animal Justice Party. 

Call to action.

• Everybody is welcome to join our online community, hosted on Discord: https://discord.gg/KVf7qFmMrX
• This community has over 100 members, and the rest of the leadership team and I are active in the discussions, so please feel free to say hello.
• We're planning on hiring a full-time researcher later this year or early January, so keep an eye on either the Discord or the EA Forum for the announcement post.

Animal Ask

What do we do?

Animal Ask conducts research to support animal advocacy organisations and campaigns. We support organisations with in-depth, cross-comparative research to support decision making towards the most promising opportunities for animals. Animal Ask assists organisation either through our prioritisation process, consultation or through our publicly available reports.

About the team (in Australia)

Ren Springlea - I'm a research scientist at Animal Ask. My work involves all aspects of Animal Ask's research, and I have particular expertise in biology, economics, and quantitative analysis. My PhD covered fisheries, effective philanthropy, and animal sentience, and I have experience working in government policy and conducting research and strategy for the Animal Justice Party. I'm based in Adelaide, South Australia.

Call to action

If you're interested in learning about our research to help make animal advocacy as effective as possible, feel free to check out our research database or sign up to our newsletter at animalask.org. If you're an organisation or individual involved with animal advocacy campaigns, we'd love you to get in touch so we can talk about supporting your efforts.

EA Pathfinder

What do we do?

EA Pathfinder is an organisation that wants to create a world in which professionals motivated by Effective Altruism can do high impact work. We are addressing the bottlenecks specific to mid-career professionals by offering career advising, peer support, research mentorship and project management support.

About the team 

• Neil Ferro has recently come on board as a career advisor.

Call to action

• If you have 5+ years of career experience and have a successful career, but feel your job doesn't have the positive impact you’d like then you can apply for free career advice here. 

More links

• You can visit the website here  
   

Foundations for Tomorrow

What do we do? 

Foundations for Tomorrow is a proudly independent, leader-focused non-profit with the mission of protecting Australia’s future generations. Our aspiration over the next 3-5 years is to:

• Research effective pathways  to safeguard future generations within the Australian politico-legal landscape; and 
• Cultivate opportunities for direct collaboration with private sector and political leaders to implement localised solutions in Australia

About the team

• Holly Crockford - Research Lead with a background in econometrics, law, and analytics. 
• Taylor Hawkins - Operations Lead with a background in business, law and social impact consulting.

Call to action 

• If you would like to engage with the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Future Generations either as an contributor or sponsor, please contact us at hello@foundationfortomorrow.org
• If you would like to collaborate on research and roadmapping initiatives, please contact us at hello@foundationfortomorrow.org

More links 

• https://www.foundationsfortomorrow.org/
   

Giving What We Can 

What do we do?

Giving What We Can is a worldwide community of effective givers whose mission is to create a culture where giving effectively and significantly is a cultural norm.

Three of our six permanent staff are based in Australia (including our executive director) and one of our founders Toby Ord is also Australian as are several founding members (e.g. Peter Singer and Peter Eckersley). Luke being hired in Australia set the precedent for hiring an international remote team (core team are in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Utrecht, Davos, New York) and shows that people can effectively work on key international projects from wherever they want to live. Our team is coming together in Australia this November for our team retreat – we hope to see some of you in the Sydney office!

About the team 

Our Australian team includes 

• Luke Freeman (executive director)
• Michael Townsend (research) and 
• Grace Adams (marketing).

Call to action

• Want advice on leading a remote team while being based in Australia? Contact Luke.
• Want to help spread effective giving around the world? Contact Luke and/or Grace.
• Come say hi to Luke and Michael in the Sydney office :) (Or find Grace in Melbourne!)

More links

Learn more about our plans in our public update about our 2022 strategy.

Good Ancestors Project (Sydney Office)

What do we do?

We’ve set up an office for people in Sydney doing EA or longtermist work. We currently have people from AI Safety Support, High Impact Recruitment, Effective Altruism Australia, Giving What We Can, Good Ancestors Project, the Lead Exposure Elimination Project and the Sentience Institute using the office. We’re taking applications for people who would want to work alongside other EAs to help build the community.

About the team 

• Bradley Tjandra - I’m the office manager. I helped to organise EAGxAustralia 2022 and used to run EA Sydney. I was previously an actuary at a consulting firm. I’m based in Sydney, Australia.

Call to action

We’re holding an Office Warming on Thursday 10th November at 5:30 PM. If you’re reading this, we’d love you to attend! Find out more here.

Please reach out to bradley [at] goodancestors.org.au if:

1. You’re interested in using the office. You can also apply via our website!
2. You’d be interested in co-managing the office with me (this would probably be on a ~0.1-0.25 FTE basis).
3. You’d like to hold an EA/longtermist event at the office.
4. You want to give/receive advice about setting up an office.

More links 

goodancestors.org.au/office

Good Ancestors Project (Operations)

What do we do?

We’re providing fiscal sponsorship and operational support to organisations and grant recipients, especially those based in Australia. We’re also looking to expand into specific projects (particularly movement building-focused).

About the team 

• Nathan Sherburn - Co-founder. Previously the co-founder of a startup (FLUX) and a PhD candidate in educational software. Based in Melbourne.
• Bradley Tjandra - Co-founder. Previously an actuarial consultant at a consulting firm. I also helped to organise EAGxAustralia 2022 and used to run EA Sydney. I’m based in Sydney.
• Michael Townsend - Board Member. Currently a Researcher at Giving What We Can.
• Luke Freeman - Board Member. Currently Executive Director of Giving What We Can.

Call to action 

Please reach out to contact [at] goodancestors.org.au if:

1. You’re planning to do, are doing, or are planning to fund EA work in Australia. We can provide fiscal sponsorship, employment, provide our infrastructure, or help setting up your own company or NFP.
2. You’d be excited to see certain projects in Australia which require competent operations people to manage the project and/or recruit a team.

More links 

www.goodancestors.org.au 

Good Ancestors Project (Policy)

What do we do?

We’re developing and advocating for Australian-specific policies derived from effective altruist, longtermist and related principles. We think a broad-tent political community supporting our ideas greatly increases our prospects of success - so we’re building relationships across Australia and the region and empowering people to advocate for the values that matter to them in a coordinated and savvy way. 

We think policy advocacy efforts are strengthened by a centralised and enduring brand - so we’re working to bring together researchers, policy developers and policy advocates wherever possible. 

About the team 

• Greg Sadler - Greg, formally a senior public servant and ministerial adviser, is leading the policy effort. Greg is also the Secretary of Effective Altruism Australia. 

Call to action 

Please reach out to greg [at] goodancestors.org.au if:

• You’re involved in policy, advocacy or related work in Australia. 
• You’re looking to be involved in, seek funding for, or provide funding for, policy, advocacy or related work in Australia. 

More links 

www.goodancestors.org.au 

High Impact Engineers 

What do we do? We aim to increase the quantity of impactful work done by physical engineers across the globe.

About the team 

Our team is internationally dispersed between Australia, UK and USA.

• Sean Lawrence. Co-Founder. Finishing off a PhD in aerospace engineering at Monash University. Based in Melbourne.
• Jessica Wen. Co-Founder. Completed a Master's in Materials Science at Oxford University, worked as a mechanical engineer at a global automotive company before running HI-Eng full-time. Based near Oxford, UK. 
• Bryce Rogers. Operations Lead. Graduated from the University of Southern California with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 2022. Based in LA, USA.

Call to action 

You should contact us or request a 1-1 with us if:

• You’re an engineer (you should also join our network of impact-oriented engineers and check out our resource page).
• You would like to be connected with engineers with specific expertise.

More links

• Resources for physical engineers
• High Impact Engineers Slack

High Impact Medicine Australia

What do we do? 

Hi Med is an international organisation bringing together medical students and doctors who wish to consider their impact. We facilitate discussion and education about the varied ways medics can increase their positive influence on the world. This may be professionally or privately, through donating effectively or career redirection (within or outside medicine). 

Currently we run an introductory fellowship every 6 months with our international counterparts, with 8 weeks of novel topics and discussion around how one might get involved. In the future, we are hoping to form interest groups at universities, and develop resources to distribute to interested individuals and course coordinators to incorporate high impact ideas into medical training. We are also starting to produce research about the crossover between Medicine and Effective Altruism.

We believe that Medicine attracts an altruistically minded, evidence-responsive type of person who would both be more likely to align with the ideas in EA, as well as having the potential career capital to have a large impact in a diverse range of fields. 

About the team

Founded in 2022 in Newcastle as a branch of Hi Med International (a Centre for Effective Altruism-supported UK initiative).

Ellie Christian and Bal Dhital completed Hi-Med’s first fellowship and went on to collaborate with the founders to form an Australian branch. Ben Prangemeier, another junior doctor and friend based in Newcastle, joined shortly after and has helped manage and run the group. 

For the most recent Hi-Med fellowship (running October-December 2022), the facilitators for the Australian cohorts are Bruce Tsai, Ellie Christian and Clare Harris.

We are looking to expand!

Call to action

Contact us for

• Medicine-specific career advice relating to impact (or see our career profile with Probably Good)
• If you’d like to get involved, we are looking to develop further opportunities and directions for those interested by forming an executive team in the coming months. Keep in the loop on our facebook group
• This will include setting up chapters in different cities in Australia 
• We are looking to run socials and in-person fellowships, and we are looking to present at relevant conferences, hospitals and medical schools in 2023

More links

Check out Hi Med’s website for more info

We are most active on our facebook group

This is our career profile with Probably Good

High Impact Recruitment

What do we do?

High Impact Recruitment aims to be a trusted hiring arm for the effective altruism community. We support young projects and growing organisations in their recruiting activities by sourcing, vetting, and matching talent to a variety of roles – with a focus on longtermist projects.

About the team

The hiring agency founders are:

• Neil Ferro is one of the co-founders and based in Sydney. He was part of the senior leadership team at the largest Australian media company for 8 years and successfully led various teams. He was the main organiser for the EA Sydney Community (FB group over 1200 members) for 3.5 years and brought on 45 speakers for EAGx Australia 2019. The other co-founders include
• Red Bermejo who is based in the Philippines and 
• Lee McClenon who is based in Philadelphia.

Call to action

If people need help with hiring please reach out to Neil Ferro - neil@eahire.org. We also have a job board of roles.

More links

• You can visit our website here  
• Job Seekers - please fill out the form below and we will keep you in mind for any roles that we come across 
• Job Search Request Form
• Looking to Hire? Are you hiring for a specific role and need some support? Please fill out the form below and we will get back to you as quickly as we can. 
• Hiring Support Request Form

Insights for Impact

What do we do? 

Fascinating and valuable research has been streaming out of EA-aligned organisations, but does anyone have time to read the papers? Insights for Impact is a new project funded by FTX, aiming to communicate key research insights in 5-15 min YouTube videos, so that EAs and any layperson can understand and keep up with cool cutting-edge research that might lead to positive impact in the world.

About the team

We are just 2 people at the moment: Christian Pearson and Jenna Ong. 

• Christian is a Canberra-born chemist and communicator currently living in Canada. 
• Jenna is a Canberra-based creative and community builder who cares a lot about wellbeing.

Both co-founders are stoked that they get to combine their science/engineering and arts backgrounds to work on such a fun EA-aligned project!

Call to action 

• If you would like us to summarise a particular research paper in video form, whether it’s your own research or someone else’s, please get in touch! Contact insightsimpactmedia@gmail.com
• If you have some skills in video animation, 3D graphics, audio engineering or potentially other skills related to video production or YouTube, please reach out! Contact insightsimpactmedia@gmail.com
   

Lead Exposure Elimination Project

What do we do?

LEEP works to prevent childhood lead poisoning - a problem that affects 815M children worldwide. We do this by advocating for regulation of lead paint (a primary route of exposure), and ensuring compliance with enforcement. 

About the team 

• Jack Rafferty - Co-Founder and Director. Based in Sydney.
• Lucia Coulter - Co-Founder and Director. 
• Clare Donaldson - Director. 
• Julia Berg - LEEP’s head of Operations. 
• Charlie Loudon - LEEP Program Manager. 
• Bal Dhital - LEEP Program Manager. 
• Charlotte Potts - LEEP Program Manager. 
• Guillermo Olmedo-Mendez - LEEP’s Bolivia Programs Lead.

Call to action 

You can contact us at contact [at] leadelimination.org 
Or, if you’d be interested in starting a high impact project like LEEP, consider reaching out to Charity Entrepreneurship at this link.

More links 

• Homepage - Lead Exposure Elimination Project
• Facebook Page - Lead Exposure Elimination Project 
• LinkedIn - Lead Exposure Elimination Project 

Quantifying Uncertainty in GiveWell CEAs

What do we do? 

We’ve been quantifying the uncertainty in GiveWell CEAs (Cost Effectiveness Analyses) for the purpose of calculating the value of future research in cost effectiveness by value of information.

We’ve recently submitted an EA Forum post on this as a submission to GiveWell’s Change our Mind Contest.

About the team 

• Sam Nolan. Software Developer for Squiggle at the Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute. Helps build the tools needed for the project. Based in Jan Juc, Victoria.
• Hannah Rokebrand. Researcher focusing on effectiveness of global poverty interventions. Based in Horsham, Victoria.

Call to action 

This is a particularly large project, and any criticism and help would be greatly appreciated. This could include:

• Development on Squiggle, the tool we use for this research.
• Criticism, Feedback or comments on our work.
• Help improving the models, as well as creating new models of different interventions.
• If you’d like to get into using Squiggle for evaluations, I’d love to chat.
• You can book Sam Nolan on calendly here: calendly.com/sam_nolan/30min

More links 

• Observable Notebook
• EA Forum post

Ready Research

What do we do?

Ready Research (readyresearch.org) conducts behaviour science research to address the world's most pressing problems. We research how to increase charitable donations (accessible summary), reduce animal-product consumption (accessible summary), teach ethics and rationality, and improve institutional decision-making. We’re scoping out a MOOC related to effective altruism or existential risk. We also incubated a government-funded rapid survey of COVID-19 behaviours (SCRUB) that ran for 21 waves throughout 2020-2021, and provided behaviour science insights which shaped COVID-19 policy.

About the team 

• Michael Noetel, Co-founder based in Brisbane. Also chair and director of Effective Altruism Australia (charity), and academic at The University of Queensland, Australia 
• Emily Grundy – Research lead based in Melbourne. Also a Research Officer at BehaviourWorks Australia with expertise in surveys, reviews, and prioritisation projects.
• Alexander Saeri, Co-founder based in Melbourne. Also applied academic / consultant at BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash University, Australia with expertise in experimental trials, data analysis, systems change, and scale up; and independent researcher in AI governance.  
• Peter Slattery, Co-founder based in Sydney. Highly connected in the Australian and international EA community. Also applied academic / consultant at BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash University, Australia with expertise in surveys and reviews. 

Call to action 

Michael is looking for a research fellow or research assistant to work on some of the above projects and will be advertising soon. Send him a short email if you want to know when that’s listed: m.noetel@uq.edu.au 

Otherwise, we’re often excited to help new researchers learn important skills by collaborating on a project. If you want to learn with us, or have a research question you want answered, you might volunteer as a:

• Team member (ideal for new researchers who want to learn and get experience)
• Project lead (ideal if you have a bit more experience and want to learn to run a team project)
• Project advisor (ideal if you have an important research question [e.g., you want to know what interventions best work for some outcome] but don’t have the researchers to answer it)

If you would like to discuss research collaboration opportunities, please contact us.
 

Sentience Institute

What do we do? 

Sentience Institute is a non-profit think tank with the aim of creating a world where all sentient minds flourish, including humans, animals, and digital minds. We aim to support the small but growing field of digital minds research, which we see as an important and neglected part of the longtermist project. In addition to publishing foundational research, we hosted The Summit on AI in Society (Brynjolfsson, Murdick, Russell, etc.), host an intergroup call across research organisations working on this topic (FHI, GCRI, CLR, etc.), and produce a podcast.

About the team (in Australia). 

• Michael Dello-Iacovo - I’m a strategy lead & researcher for SI. I’ve been working on a range of generalist tasks, including running the digital minds intergroup call, hosting our podcast, and doing research on projects such as understanding how different trajectories to the end of animal farming affect further moral change. I have a PhD in space science, have been actively involved with the Animal Justice Party, and have held several leadership roles in Australian effective altruism organisations and local chapters.

Call to action 

• If people are interested in following our work or other updates such as being notified of future hiring rounds, they should follow our newsletter via our website.
• If people want to contact me directly, they can do so via michael@sentienceinstitute.org.

More links 

• https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/research-agenda

Thanks to everyone involved in these organisations and projects who took the time to write something for this post! Thanks especially to Michael Townsend for suggesting and reviewing this post.