Athena Mentorship Program for Women
Athena (researchathena.org) is a program founded by Claire Short that runs roughly 10-week cohorts pairing women with established AI safety researchers for mentorship, skill development, and networking. Each cohort includes a week-long in-person retreat (held in Oxford for the inaugural 2024 cohort) and remote mentorship sessions, with the goal of increasing the number of women pursuing careers in technical AI alignment. The program targets women with research or technical backgrounds who are transitioning into or early in AI safety careers, and has served over two dozen participants across its first two cohorts.
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Theory of Change
Athena believes that increasing women's representation in technical AI alignment research leads to better AI safety outcomes through three pathways: (1) retaining qualified researchers who might otherwise leave the field due to cultural barriers, thereby growing the overall talent pool working on alignment; (2) introducing diverse perspectives and cognitive approaches that make the overall research portfolio more comprehensive and less prone to blind spots; and (3) building a cohort of women who will become future researchers and policy advisors with the technical background needed to influence AI governance decisions. The program uses mentorship, community-building, and structured skill development to accelerate these researchers' entry into the field.
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Details
- Last Updated
- Apr 2, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC
- Created
- Mar 19, 2026, 10:31 PM UTC