We at GCRI recognize that our current team lacks demographic diversity. We wish to support demographic diversity in the field of global catastrophic risk, including within our own team. For more information, please see the GCRI Statement on the Demographic Diversity of the GCRI Team, January 2023.
Seth Baum, Ph.D.
Executive Director
seth [at] gcrinstitute.org
New York City
Seth Baum leads GCRI’s planning and management and contributes to GCRI’s research. He is also a Research Affiliate of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Pennsylvania State University (2012), an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University (2006), and a B.S. in Optics and Applied Mathematics from the University of Rochester (2003). He completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University and was a Fellow of the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity program of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University.
Gary Ackerman is Associate Professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He was previously a GCRI Associate and also Director of the Unconventional Weapons and Technology Division at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), based at the University of Maryland. He advises GCRI in particular regarding the development of new research organizations as well as the national and international security dimensions of global catastrophic risk, including with the United States government and the Washington, DC policy community. He also contributes to GCRI research.
Tony Barrett is a Senior Technical Advisor at the National Risk Management Center of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. His role as an advisor to GCRI is unpaid and in his personal capacity, providing his own views and not representing DHS CISA nor others. He previously served as GCRI’s co-founder and Director of Research. He also worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at the University of Southern California, a Fellow in the RAND Stanton Nuclear Security Fellows Program, a Non-Resident Fellow with the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC) at UC Berkeley, and the Lead for Advanced Analytics – Machine Learning at ABS Consulting.
Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh is Programme Director of AI: Futures and Responsibility at the University of Cambridge. He previously was Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge and also helped establish the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, a joint project of Cambridge, Oxford, and the University of California, Berkeley. He advises GCRI on a range of matters related to the study of global catastrophic risk, the development and management of research institutes, and the wider community of individuals and organizations involved in global catastrophic risk.
