Athena Mentorship Program for Women
Athena is a hybrid mentorship program for women in technical AI alignment research, combining remote mentorship with an in-person retreat to build skills, networks, and representation in the field.
Athena is a hybrid mentorship program for women in technical AI alignment research, combining remote mentorship with an in-person retreat to build skills, networks, and representation in the field.
People
Updated 05/18/26Founder & Program Director
Funding Details
Updated 05/18/26- Annual Budget
- -
- Current Runway
- -
- Funding Goal
- -
- Funding Raised to Date
- -
Org Details
Updated 05/18/26Athena is a research mentorship program focused on increasing representation of women and marginalized genders in technical AI alignment research. It was founded by Claire Short, an independent researcher with backgrounds in neuroscience, data science, and AI safety who was also a 2024 Foresight Institute Fellow and has participated in the MATS AI alignment fellowship. The program runs roughly 10-week hybrid cohorts. Each cohort features a one-week in-person retreat and approximately two months of remote mentorship with established AI safety researchers. The inaugural cohort launched in January 2024 with a retreat held in Oxford, UK, featuring 12 mentors and 12 fellows. Mentors for the first cohort came from organizations including Anthropic, DeepMind, Redwood Research, Timaeus, MIRI, and academic institutions. A second cohort ran in fall 2025 (October 14 through December 22), with the in-person retreat in November. The program's three core justifications are: shifting field culture to retain qualified researchers who face systemic barriers, leveraging diverse perspectives to develop more comprehensive AI safety solutions, and building representation among women who may become future AI policy advisors. Claire Short has framed the program as evidence that pursuing AI safety and diversity goals simultaneously is not a trade-off but a complementary endeavor. Funding for the program has come from a Lightspeed grant (a partial grant of the amount requested) as well as community crowdfunding via Manifund. No public budget figures have been disclosed. The program is run by a small team led by Claire Short, who can be reached at claire@researchathena.org.
Theory of Change
Updated 05/18/26Athena 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.
Grants Received– no grants recorded
Updated 05/18/26Projects– no linked projects
Updated 05/18/26Discussion
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.