Meet Indian-origin Akshay Jagadeesh, new research resident at OpenAI

Indian-origin Akshay Jagadeesh, a scientist working at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and neuroscience, has joined OpenAI as a research resident.

In a post on X announcing his new role at the artificial intelligence platform, Jagadeesh said, “I’m thrilled to share that I’ve joined @OpenAI as a research resident, focusing on safety research and AI for health.”

“After nearly 10 years studying the brain, I’m excited for this next chapter building AGI to accelerate medical progress and scientific research! #feeltheagi,” he added.



Brief background

According to Jagadeesh’s LinkedIn profile, he joined OpenAI in August. Prior to this, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School.

Jagadeesh has spent almost a decade studying and researching different streams of neuroscience. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in computer science and cognitive science from the University of California, Berkeley. After post-graduation, he worked as a software engineering intern at edX and Nutanix.

This was followed by stints as a research assistant at Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience in Germany and D’Esposito Lab in the US. Lastly, he took a doctorate in computational neuroscience and psychology at Stanford University. “My research examined how the human brain transforms sensory inputs into the rich perceptual experience that we use to guide behaviour,” he explained on his LinkedIn profile.

What will he do at OpenAI?

As Jagadeesh has a deep understanding of the human brain and neuroscience, he will be exploring two things:

• Advancing safety research to ensure AI systems are reliable and aligned
• Exploring how AI can accelerate progress in health and medicine

AI talent war

Jagadeesh’s appointment comes at a time of intensifying talent war in the US tech industry. After Meta, OpenAI has poached four top engineers from rival firms led by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, according to a Wired report.

ChatGPT parent, OpenAI, has hired David Lau, former vice president of software engineering at Tesla, for its scaling team, per the report. The company has also onboarded Uday Ruddarraju, the former head of infrastructure engineering at xAI and X; Mike Dalton, an infrastructure engineer from xAI; and Angela Fan, an AI researcher from Meta.