Member of Technical Staff

CCST places a new AI Science Advisor at the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services. SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) is expanding its AI Science Residency Program, launched in June 2026, with the placement of a new AI Science Advisor at the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES). The AI Science Residency Program is placing a cohort of highly qualified AI experts within the California state government, specifically Cal OES and the California Department of Technology (CDT), to advise senior leaders on frontier AI safety. According to Cal OES California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC) Commander Matthew Sage, the CCST AI Science Residency Program allows Cal OES to meaningfully strengthen their capacity to respond to the rapidly evolving frontier AI risk landscape. CCST is collaborating with senior leaders at Cal OES and their inaugural AI Science Advisor, Michael Chen, to build a cohort of world-class experts on frontier AI safety risks that meets the agency's immediate needs for specialized expertise. The new AI Science Advisor joining Cal OES, Lawrence Chan, is among the top experts on frontier AI model evaluation and experienced at communicating his insights to policymakers at the state, federal, and international level. Incoming AI Science Advisor to the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services. Lawrence Chan. As AI Science Advisor to the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), Lawrence will advise senior leadership on frontier AI safety and risk assessment, with a particular emphasis on critical safety incidents, AI and cyber defense, and risk from developers' internal deployment of AI, such as sabotage by AI agents and automated AI R&D. He will also coordinate with AI governance leads across California's state government and facilitate cross-sector collaboration with the academic research community, the private sector, and community and nonprofit organizations Lawrence joins Cal OES from METR, where he conducted pre-deployment and benchmarking evaluations of frontier AI models, focusing on empirical measurements designed for communication with policymakers and the public. He co-led METR's research measuring the "time horizon" of AI agents, which was covered in Nature and has become a widely used metric for tracking AI progress. He previously researched mechanistic interpretability and adversarial training at Redwood Research. His technical reports served as evidence for recent state government action on AI governance in California, including for the Joint California Policy Working Group on AI Frontier Models, and he has experience providing informal technical briefings to congressional staff and senior federal officials in Washington, D.C. He is currently on leave from his PhD program at UC Berkeley, where he is affiliated with the Center for Human-Compatible AI and the InterACT Lab. He holds undergraduate degrees in computer science, logic, and economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, where he worked with the Good Judgment Project on using machine learning to assist forecasting. "California is home to most of the world's frontier AI developers, and the state will be influential in governing perhaps the most important technology of our time" said Lawrence Chan. "Cal OES has a unique role to play here, by understanding the opportunities and risks resulting from ever more capable AI systems, receiving reports when something goes wrong, and making sure the state is prepared to respond. I look forward to helping build this capacity." Open Roles in the AI Science Residency Program at Cal OES and CDT As AI Science Advisors at Cal OES, Michael Chen and Lawrence Chan are now leading the recruitment and selection process for up to two Senior AI Fellows at Cal OES to support their technical work, together with the CCST AI Science Residency Program team. The Senior AI Fellows will work directly with Michael and Lawrence and several Cal OES teams to advance frontier AI catastrophic risk assessment and management, focusing on the analysis and response to critical safety incidents. Additionally, CCST is working with CDT to add up to two Senior AI Fellows at CDT to support AI Science Advisor Justin Norman, Ph.D. The Senior AI Fellows will support Justin in advising senior leaders within CDT on advances in frontier AI development and governance that impact key definitions and thresholds in California frontier AI safety legislation. About CCST The California Council on Science and Technology is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that serves as a trusted source of expert science and technology advice for California policymakers - powered by a world-class partner network. CCST was established via a unanimous vote of the California Legislature in 1988 to make California's policies stronger with science and technology. About the AI Science Residency Program The AI Science Residency Program is part of the CCST AI Policy Initiative. It follows the January 2026 launch of CCST's Science Residency Program, which placed an inaugural Science Advisor to the California Natural Resources Secretary. AI Science Advisors are formally employed by CCST and placed in their respective agencies through a memorandum of understanding, ensuring an independent scientific perspective while enabling full integration within agency leadership teams. For more information about the AI Science Residency Program, contact Program Manager Henriette Canino, PhD, at [email protected]. About Cal OES The Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) serves as the state's leadership hub during all major emergencies and disasters. This includes responding, directing, and coordinating state and federal resources and mutual aid assets across all regions to support the diverse communities across the state. Cal OES also supports local jurisdictions and communities through planning and preparedness activities and training, and facilitating the immediate response to an emergency through the longer-term recovery phase. During this process, Cal OES serves as the state's overall coordinator and agent to secure federal government resources through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. About CDT The California Department of Technology serves as the custodian of public data, an innovator in IT services and solutions, overseeing policy development, facilitating collaboration across agencies, ensuring effective IT project management, safeguarding information integrity, delivering technological services, and championing advocacy efforts.

METR has raised approximately $71 million in commitments over the past six months. The funding will support projects including studying autonomous AI capabilities, tracking recursive self-improvement, evaluating monitoring systems, conducting risk assessments, and investigating AI incidents. Major supporters include The Audacious Project, individuals from Jane Street, and foundations such as the Sijbrandij Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Schmidt Sciences, and the Packard Foundation. Individual donors include David Farhi, Geoff Ralston, Dylan Field, and Steve Newman. METR maintains independence from frontier AI companies and does not accept their funding or donations from their staff. The organisation is expanding its team and launching new projects whilst conducting cutting-edge tests of AI capabilities.