Meet Our Global Team 

Ash is our Founder and CEO, with a background as an AI entrepreneur, policymaker, educator and investor. He is Treasurer at Rethink Priorities, and a mentor at Salzburg Global Fellowship. He was formerly Chief Economist at the Royal Society of Arts, where he led work on economic change and co-founded the Forum for Ethical AI with DeepMind.

He is the author of The Moral Marketplace (UB Press, 2018) as well as more than thirty publications on policy and tech for good, and writes and broadcasts widely. He is based between London, Berlin, and the Bay Area.

Sam is an Electric Sheep Associate, Mentor and Technical Guru. He facilitates the Futurekind fellowship and offers mentorship across the field to code-based projects. As founder of OpenPaws he is a key delivery partner for Electric Sheep, providing technical architecture and oversight for the Code for Compassion series.

Dr Bárbara Buril is a research and strategy consultant with a PhD in Philosophy and a background in journalism. She supports high-impact projects—across nonprofits and businesses—in turning complex ideas into clear, actionable strategies. Previously, she worked at Animal Think Tank, where she led research on social movement theory and cultural change to advance animal freedom in the UK.

Fluent in Portuguese, English, French, and Spanish, Bárbara has been published in academic journals and mainstream media and is also a published author. She is especially passionate about supporting people to shape the future of artificial intelligence in ways that promote the wellbeing of both animals and humans—through bold, thoughtful, and effective strategies for the greater good.

Aditya is the Director of Learning Programs at Electric Sheep where he is responsible for curriculum and operations for our fellowship and incubator programs. He brings a considerable background as a thought-leader and educator in AI safety and Animal protection. He has led on AI safety outreach for the Impact Academy and outreach for Animal Ethics. He combines his work leading Electric Sheep’s learning programs with his work at the leading edge of the movement at U. de Compostela in Spain.

Khushbu is the Community and Impact Manager at Electric Sheep. She has a background in Philosophy, having worked as Junior Research Fellow at the University of Delhi, where she explored the impact of cultural relativism on animals, and how insights from moral theories can be made more accessible to animal advocates. She has also studied animal protection law at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research, Hyderabad and was an Ahimsa Fellow. She is the ongoing first point of contact for our learners and works tirelessly to ensure that Electric Sheep’s global community is as impactful as it can be.

Matt is founder and president of MTCC—a boutique consulting firm specializing in engineering design and implementation for the food & beverage industry. With a proven track record of scaling iconic plant-based brands like Impossible Burger, Kite Hill cheese, Ripple Milk, and Eat JUST mayo, Matt has helped start-ups successfully navigate the journey from pre-seed to commercialization.

Indra serves in local politics for the Dutch Party for the Animals, in the Water Authority (a Dutch layer of government), his City Council and in the Province before, together covering all layers of Dutch local politics, focusing in particular on topics that relate to his background. His study background spans systems biology - including evolutionary theory, combined with a strong interest in Dennettian philosophy - and risk management or actuarial science (i.e. insurance mathematics) and related fields, i.e. econometrics, operations research and mathematical economics. He co-founded Effective Altruism Tilburg, which included an effective animal advocacy group discussing Tobias Leenaert’s book How to Create a Vegan World as well as a fellowship on Global Mental Health, and the Tilburg AI Safety Initiative with a unique focus on the governance of AI systems. The wider community and before that his alma mater, rooted in the tutorial system, provided ample opportunities to practice facilitation, which he can now apply in our Futurekind fellowship. The future interplay between facts and values, and what our and artificial intelligence’s role therein should be and is, is one of his favourite topics for reflection.

Jack is an interdisciplinary researcher exploring research pathways that might nudge us toward a better future. He has a background spanning animal welfare and advocacy research, ethnology in rural China and Southeast Asia, and international development. After several years working on animal advocacy and alternative protein research at Good Growth, he is now transitioning into AI governance.

His current work focuses on the Chinese political economy in global AI discourse, how economic incentives can be harnessed to generate public goods in AI, and how the diffusion of technologies, from factory farming systems to frontier AI, will evolve in an AI-enabled future.

Yan Xu is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Durham University, focusing on philosophy of morality, speech acts, and political philosophy. With a background in both academia and industry project leadership, her work explores how emerging technologies reshape discourse, identity, and justice. She is passionate about translating complex philosophical ideas into practical frameworks for ethical AI, animal protection, and public engagement.

Allen is an interdisciplinary creative engineer working at the intersection of AIxAnimals, focused on developing technological solutions for neglected areas of animal suffering that connect with AGI strategy and AI safety. He is passionate about strengthening community and is dedicated to movement and capacity-building.

He also leads corporate campaigns and legislative advocacy against factory farming. In his free time, he creates narrative-driven video games that center non-human animals.

Karen is a policy researcher and advocate focused on embedding animal welfare into emerging governance and economic frameworks. As Policy President for the Animal Justice Party Aotearoa NZ, she leads policy development across farmed, wild-living and companion animals, climate transition, and community wellbeing and has written multiple government submissions alongside a policy brief on AI and animal welfare in NZ.

Drawing on over a decade in central government, where she led strategic initiatives and capability-building across complex systems, she brings practical insight into navigating non-conventional career paths at the intersection of advocacy, research and policy.

Engineer and serial founder working across Latin America. She served as Executive Director for Mercy For Animals Latin America, co-founded an animal welfare nonprofit supported by Open Philanthropy, and later co-founded the leading plant-based meat company in Peru. She also worked in the Peruvian government, designing grantmaking programs to support innovation. Currently, she's exploring AI and its intersection with animal welfare.

Michał Kubiak is an AI Policy Officer at ORCG, focusing on European AI regulations and AI risk management. His previous tech policy experience stems from his role as an AI Policy Officer at the Brussels-based European DIGITAL SME Alliance. Michał is also a teacher at the AI governance boot camps organised by ML4Good and a facilitator of AI governance courses at BlueDot Impact.

Michał's research experience includes investigating policies applicable to transformative AI (e.g., with Supervised Program for Alignment Research - SPAR) and earlier experience in industrial mathematics (STEM-based scientific problem solving for businesses, governments and other institutions).

Elizabeth has over eight years in the nonprofit sector, working with Mercy For Animals, Amnesty International, and Animal Charity Evaluators, and 12 years in corporate marketing and communications. She brings expertise in digital marketing, fundraising campaigns, and mobilizing communities to drive impact.

Recently, she has focused on AI applications for animal welfare and gained deep expertise in alternative proteins and sustainable food systems, combining her passion for animals with innovative, tech-driven solutions.

Aishwarya’s work spans AI policy, community building, and program operations. She has contributed to research at the Center for AI and Digital Policy, facilitated global learning spaces with the Center for AI Safety, BlueDot Impact, and Future Academy, and supported the design of inclusive, impact-focused programs. She is particularly passionate about creating systems that enable others to do meaningful work. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Business Administration and Applied Mathematics.