Creating an abundant, wonder-filled future by unlocking powerful materials and manufacturing technologies that don’t have a home in other institutions.
Joined November 2022
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Thinking about applying to the Brains Fellowship?
We’re going to be doing online info sessions on October 14 at 8pm ET and October 20 at 12:30pm ET.
Come ask all your questions about the fellowship and applications!
luma.com/33yi0rjo
luma.com/l5t5ybyz
Speculative Technologies retweeted
An incredible opportunity for ambitious scientists interested in solving research problems that are ill-suited to the traditional academic model. (Note: you may not yet be aware that you fall into this category!)
Applications are now open for the 2027 Cohort of Brains Fellows!
If you have an ambitious technical research idea (in any discipline) that is beyond the scope of an academic lab or VC-funded startup, we want to hear from you!
spec.tech/brains
Brains is a part-time, remote program designed for busy professionals.
The 2027 cohort will run from Jan-May 2027.
Apply here by Oct 26: airtable.com/appmlU6No189UaX…
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It's working! This will be our fifth Brains cohort; our fellows are now running coordinated research programs with $70M+ committed, and more in the pipeline.
But scientific career paths, funding mechanisms, and organizational templates are still anchored in the 20th century.
Brains is working to change that.
21st century science will be driven by scientists with the ingenuity and ambition to tackle problems that once required massive teams, equipped with AI-augmented tools and new institutional structures.
The idea behind Brains is simple: pave a “third path” for talented scientists to start game-changing research programs that are poor fits for both startups and academic labs.
Brains helps scientists build skills, plans and connections to launch these programs.
The Brains fellowship is a four-month intensive that jump-starts scientists starting ambitious coordinated research programs: efforts like FROs, ARPA programs, and other programs beyond the scope of individual academic labs or VC-funded startups.
Applications are now open for the 2027 Cohort of Brains Fellows!
If you have an ambitious technical research idea (in any discipline) that is beyond the scope of an academic lab or VC-funded startup, we want to hear from you!
spec.tech/brains
See the post on the Spectech newsletter:
blog.spec.tech/p/dumbing-dow…
Creating new research organizations involves communicating deeply technical ideas to a huge range of people.
@eileen_nakahata compiled the most important lessons on effectively conveying technical ideas gleaned over years helping fellows start coordinated research programs.
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We just wrapped up the 2026 cohort of the Brains research accelerator!
Our fellows are building programs to do everything from creating electronic noses to running challenges on AI-human teaming for better sensemaking to designing constantly-updating antibiotics.
Speculative Technologies retweeted
The Universal Robotic Nose Project (“Project URN”) is dedicated to building the first universal gas sensor so machines can have the sense of smell. Check it out! Please share with anyone you think might be interested in helping us make this a reality!
youtube.com/watch?v=mZmIrJX3…
At the end of the day, it's people who create science and technology.
@di_goldene_pave founded Cosmic Frontier Labs to build a fleet of space telescopes designed to be produced, launched, and iterated on at a pace astronomy has never seen.
open.substack.com/pub/parpa/…
Speculative Technologies retweeted
An uncomfortable truth running under the current debates about science is that if a researcher can't fund their work out of their own pocket, someone else needs to feel like they're buying something valuable.
blog.spec.tech/p/research-ha…
Speculative Technologies retweeted
This is what @Spec__Tech is striving to be!
(There are some prerequisite things on the tech tree we need to take care of first.)
can someone just work full-time on cool utopian technologies like the warp drive, the utility fog or iron man’s self-assembling nanotech???
i like @Ben_Reinhardt takes pretty well here - accelerating engineering & manufacturing processes is (partially) a way there
Speculative Technologies retweeted
I'm super excited to go for bold science as part of the @Spec__Tech Brains accelerator! I am pursuing a mechanistic way of scaling up phase transformations with x-rays and simulations. Check out the cohort in their thread!
@apoletayev is unlocking a new type of manufacturing data by tracking the paths of atoms as they assemble into materials during syntheses, especially if they do so rapidly.
You can read more about them and their work (and follow along) at blog.spec.tech/p/meet-the-20…
