Organizing Team
Executive Team
Ruairidh McLennan Battleday BMBCh (Oxon) PhD
Founder and President
Ruairidh is an AI researcher, entrepreneur, and author. By day, he produces research on AI for Science, investigating whether we can automate scientific discovery using scalable machine learning algorithms. That also involves him studying and writing about great scientific discoveries of the past, including the Chemical Revolution. By night, he runs Thinking About Thinking, a 501(c)3 non-profit he founded to cultivate and disseminate new computational ideas about intelligence. Thinking About Thinking has recently branched out into entrepreneurship, fostering world-class founding teams of scientists, and enterprise, helping business adapt to the ever-changing capabilities of AI. Ruairidh holds degrees in biology, medicine, neuroscience, computer science, and cognitive science.
Hobbies & Interests: surfing, traveling, and reading
Chief Marketing Officer
Clare Maguire is a multidisciplinary leader whose career spans music, technology, and business development. As a chart-topping musician with multiple top-ten albums and international tours, she established herself as a creative force in the music industry before expanding into technology and innovation. Clare combines her artistic background with technical expertise in full-stack development, AI applications, and digital marketing. She is passionate about leveraging technology to empower creative communities and has founded multiple initiatives supporting emerging creators. As Chief Marketing Officer at Thinking About Thinking, Clare develops comprehensive strategies that bridge scientific innovation with compelling storytelling, helping translate complex ideas for broader audiences. She also serves as an advisor and investor for various technology startups and cultural organizations.
Hobbies & Interests: music, nature walks
Chief Ethical Officer
Bio & Experience
Skyler Wang is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University and a Research Scientist at the Foundational AI Research (FAIR) lab at Meta. He earned his PhD in Sociology from UC Berkeley. Broadly, Skyler is an AI sociologist who interrogates the inner workings and societal impact of sociotechnical and machine learning systems. Using mixed-methods, experiments, and STS approaches, he critically examines the epistemic cultures of AI and human-machine interactions in health and relational contexts. One branch of his empirical work explores how digital platforms—such as network hospitality, online dating, and AI companions—shape modern intimacy and relationships. In applied AI, Skyler works with both industry and academic collaborators to develop state-of-the-art, open-source machine translation models for speakers of underserved languages. His contributions to No Language Left Behind and SeamlessM4T have been published in Nature, with the latter recognized by TIME Magazine as one of the Top 200 Inventions in 2023.
Hobbies & Interests
pickleball, couchsurfing, and food & wine
Designer & Technical Lead
Bio & Experience
I’m an undergraduate at Minerva University, located in Tokyo for 2025 - 2026. I previously researched quantum simulation, developed with EEG and enjoy cognitive science. More recently, I collaborated with San Francisco startups on rapid prototyping projects involving drones, arXiv parsers, NFCs, laser cutters and more. My ongoing project on low-cost maskless microelectrode arrays received microgrant funding.
Hobbies & Interests
writing, exploring, and music
Chief Operational Officer
Bio & Experience
Senior level expert in large enterprise comprehensive analytics, strategic leveraging, and targeted mitigation of risk elements.
Hobbies & Interests
motorbiking, cooking, Bagua, and playing guitar
Chief of Staff & Designer
Bio & Experience
I love jazz, mountains and forests, making stuff (catch me at the Institute of Making), botanical drawing, and drinking fancy tea out of fancy teacups. My favourite brain area is probably the inferior olive.
Hobbies & Interests
pole fitness, reading, animation, and politics
Session Chairs
Session Chair
Bio & Experience
I work in the intersection of AI, research, business, and storytelling. My work is all about bridging worlds and communicating insights. Currently I'm: • Running an AI research and upskilling company, helping universities and organisations adapt to the disruption of AI & intelligent systems • Supporting academic research, using AI & machine learning for scientific discovery (with a focus on NLP and network analysis) • Producing a documentary set in the island São Tomé and Príncipe where I'm from. It explores identity, culture, and post-colonialism (My third short film) • Writing a book on AI, power and the future of society. If you're interested in AI strategy, ethics, research collaborations, or exploring the future of work, let's connect. I love working in multi-disciplinary spaces—bringing together technology, people, philosophy, and creative expression to ask better questions and build smarter solutions :)
Hobbies & Interests
Various!
Session Chair
Bio & Experience
Nicolay is an AI entrepreneur, leader, and builder whose work spans academia, industry, and venture creation. Trained at NTNU's CS & Finance program, UC Berkeley's entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the Norwegian Army, he combines technical depth with the ability to mobilize teams and industries around transformative goals. As Co-founder and CEO of Main Quest, an AI product lab, he delivers large-scale automation projects for industry leaders and the United Nations while incubating spin-off ventures in real estate, procurement, and sustainability. Nicolay has chaired AI Safety summits in Boston, Tokyo and London, collaborated with leading researchers on mechanistic interpretability, lectured 500 students in ML and published on the intersection of AI, economics, and finance. With additional experience ranging from management consulting and investment banks to launching consumer apps, he thrives at turning technical insight into ventures with safe and vast impact.
Hobbies & Interests
traveling, reading, and golf
Session Chair (AI x Medicine)
Bio & Experience
Dan is a mathematician, engineer and physician. He completed his DPhi in mathematics at Oxford under the supervision of Prof Philip Maini FRS and his medical degree at Green-Templeton College, Oxford. He was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley in the laboratory of MAR Koehl. Dan's research focusses on using mathematics and computer science methods to better understand complex biological systems, particularly as they relate to disease states, inflammation and ageing.
Hobbies & Interests
Various interests
Core Team
Operations
Bio & Experience
Behavioural and Organisational Development | UCL
Hobbies & Interests
pole fitness, tennis, and surfing
Marketing Intern
Bio & Experience
Olena Yara is a Web3 marketing expert who served as the Head of Digital Marketing at Fuelarts, an Art+Tech investment platform, where she crafted effective digital marketing strategies for startups. At LiveArt, Olena served as Content Manager, spearheading strategic partnerships with prestigious institutions such as Christie's Education, Forbes Web3, and NFC Summit and contributing to the debut of NFT and Ordinal drops by renowned artist Yue Minjun. She successfully organized a panel discussion and curated a digital art exhibition during Art Basel Miami 2023. Olena is also a speaker at NFC Lisbon, Zebu Live, Web3 Amsterdam, and ETH Warsaw. She's a contributor at NFT Magazine, writing articles on digital art. She co-founded Factory 4.0, a nomadic gallery, organizing events across the world, in 2024 they hosted an event together with Tezos (Trilitech) in London. She founded Yara Agency, a marketing & PR agency that lifts sales and exposure of digital art.
Hobbies & Interests
reading, stretching, show jumping, and meditation
Tech Lead
Bio & Experience
Computer Science student @ King's College London focused in Quantitative Finance and Software Engineering. Highlights: • Started content creation 📷 • Travelling around the world organising conferences 🌎 • 2x Internships 👨💼 • 8x Spring Week offers 🎩 • Top 1% globally + 15th in the UK for IMC Prosperity 3 🏝 • Finalist in Optiver's Transistor Trading Challenge 📊 • Interviewed with the BBC 🎤 • 12th in the UK for Google Code Jam 2023 (Python) 👨💻. Doing my best to help other students achieve the same by democratising opportunity. Check out my TikTok (@aahilnj). howtostudent.net
Hobbies & Interests
Various interests
Lead Designer
Bio & Experience
I am a cognitive scientist from Germany with a Ph.D. in computer science. During my bachelor's and master's studies, I started being interested in sleep & dream and human attention mechanisms. My goal is to leverage the intelligence of humans as well as machines. For my Ph.D. thesis, I focused on attention-aware interaction systems for augmented reality. I have a lot of experience in EEG, eye tracking, machine learning and BCI research, including conference talks and paper publications. My work also includes teaching university courses which I highly enjoy. I was a postdoctoral researcher at the computational and cognitive neuroscience lab (Prof. Dr. Yu) at the University of California, San Diego. Currently, I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
Hobbies & Interests
playing tennis and photography
Designer
Bio & Experience
Cognitive Science, Art History, & Design @ UC Berkeley
Hobbies & Interests
Various interests
AI x Medicine
Bio & Experience
Finn brings expertise in AI applications for medicine to the AE Global Summit. In his free time, he enjoys surfing, singing, and driving.
Hobbies & Interests
surfing, singing, and driving
James Whittington BMBCh (Oxon) DPhil (Oxon)
Founder and Vice-President
James is a Principal Investigator at Oxford University and leads a group researching fundamentals in AI and neuroscience. He holds degrees in physics, medicine, and neuroscience—all from Oxford. He has worked at AI startups as well as big tech, and now consults for various AI tech companies. James is a co-founder at Thinking About Thinking, organising its scientific agenda as well as the programmes for several Summits and conferences each year.
Hobbies & Interests: chess, reading, running, and exploring
Editor in Chief / Chief Creative Officer
Bio & Experience
Taylor is a writer, a teacher, and a former neuroscience researcher. He holds degrees in computational neuroscience and journalism from Princeton, MIT, and NYU. Taylor's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Book Review, and other publications. He is a founding member of Thinking About Thinking and an alum of Diiverse Intelligences Summer Institute, where he met Ruairidh and Skyler. Taylor's fMRI work on memory, sleep and aging contributed to papers in Science, Neuron, and Cognition. His roles at Thinking About Thinking include hosting the Arts Salon at Neuromonster, giving talks and readings, and advocating for divergent cognition. As an educator, he reaches out to students, including at The Pierrepont School in Westport, Connecticut, where he teaches Science, English, and a course on mental disorders. Taylor believes we will not understand intelligence until we know what makes us lose our minds, and find them again.
Hobbies & Interests
hiking, running, and reading everything
Session Chair
Bio & Experience
I educate, therefore I am. Rehana is an AI Learning Manager at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, where she designs and develops AI resources for global audiences. She holds a master's degree in Educational Technologies from Harvard University, where she also studied digital fabrication and educational game design at MIT. As a Computer Science Specialist at Khan Lab School in Silicon Valley, she focused on designing courses in machine learning, and physical computing, incorporating her interdisciplinary background in robotics, creative coding and wearable technology.
Hobbies & Interests
electronics, embroidering, and archery
Session Chair
Bio & Experience
Felix is a computational cognitive scientist and entrepreneur. He recently received his PhD from Harvard University in cognitive science, where he developed theories and models of human-level physical reasoning. His work before his PhD focused on neuroevolution, developing algorithms that can grow deep learning models the way natural brains grow through evolution and development. As a postdoctoral scientist at Harvard's Center for Brain Science and NTT's Physics of Intelligence Lab, he helps lead research efforts in cognitive and mechanistic interpretability, developing next-generation methods and tooling for interpreting, debugging, and steering AI behavior. Felix moonlights as a research partner at Advaita Capital, where he helps source, lead, and diligence the growth firm's AI and compute investments.
Hobbies & Interests
racing and motorsports
Head of Socials and Digital Engagement
Bio & Experience
The mind is vast and intricate, shaped by memories, perceptions, and things we don't fully understand. I started exploring it through computer science; writing code, simulating complex systems, building virtual environments, and training neural networks. It was fascinating to see how logic could create something real. But one question never left me: What makes us who we are? That question pulled me toward neuroscience. Now, I study the brain's electrical signals using EEG to understand how we process and store experiences. I'm especially drawn to perceptual biases, how our memories and past experiences quietly shape how we see the world. Yes, these are quirks as well as traces of who we were, shaping who we become. Every study teaches me more about how the brain connects memory, context, and awareness. I wonder about how we perceive ourselves, in moments of clarity, ambiguity, dreams, meditation, or altered states of mind. Is our sense of self something fixed, or is it constantly shifting, shaped by time and experience? Outside the lab, I love sharing these ideas in ways that make people curious. Science, at its heart, is storytelling, helping others see the beauty in complex things. Through science communication, I want to bring these ideas closer to people. I find joy in conversations that challenge my perspective. I have a restless curiosity, I want to know everything, have an opinion on everything, and love when ideas evolve when they collide.
Hobbies & Interests
Theatre, reading
Marketing Intern
Bio & Experience
Lina Boudelaa is a Computer Science student at Royal Holloway, University of London, with a growing passion for cyber security and technology. She currently serves as President of the Royal Holloway Cyber Security Society, where she leads initiatives to engage students in cyber security awareness, professional development, and industry collaboration. Alongside this, she is an intern at Encode Club, contributing to the wider tech and blockchain ecosystem and strengthening links between academia and industry. Outside of her technical pursuits, Lina has a strong background in leadership and community involvement. She is Secretary of the Royal Holloway Tennis Society and has experience as a tutor, supporting students in maths and English and developing her communication and teaching skills. Writing is another of her creative outlets, where she shares ideas and reflections on technology, education, and personal growth. With a diverse set of experiences spanning technical, leadership, and creative fields, Lina is committed to developing her career as a computer scientist while making a positive impact on the student and professional communities she is part of.
Hobbies & Interests
writing, tennis, and painting
Tech Lead
Bio & Experience
I'm a first year Computer Science student studying at King's College London. I'm interested in software engineering, quant dev and quant trading. If I can be of help to you, or you just want to talk, I'm always happy to chat - just drop me a message!
Hobbies & Interests
Various interests
Designer
Bio & Experience
Research | Psycholinguistics | Cognitive science | Prosody | Cerebral imaging | Production and perception mechanisms
Hobbies & Interests
Various interests
Designer
Bio & Experience
2023-2026 - PhD position at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. University of Oxford 2022, MSc - cognitive and evolutionary anthropology. Reynolds Postgraduate Research Fellow - University of Auckland Animal Minds Lab, New Zealand. Dartmouth College 2017, BA - biology and studio art double major. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute 2016 REU intern. Neukom DALI Lab lead UI/UX designer. Stamps Scholar.
Hobbies & Interests
Various interests
Webmaster
Bio & Experience
Msc Computer Science, Bsc CSE
Hobbies & Interests
Various interests
Operations
Bio & Experience
ACHIEVEMENT: 2013-2020 Assistant Coach of Roberto Marinelli (Youth Open Water Italian National Team Head Coach, European Champions 2013-2014-2015-2016 and World Champions 2014-2016. Head Coach at UNICUSANO AURELIA NUOTO – Rome, with several Medalist and Finalist at Italian Championships. Coach of Giada Galizi, 4x100 freestyle mixed Gold Medalist and 4x100 freestyle women Bronze Medalist at European Championships long course Berlin 2014 and partecipant at World Championships short course Doha 2014. Coach of Alessio Proietti Colonna, 4x200 freestyle man Bronze Medalist at European Championships long course Glasgow 2018).
Hobbies & Interests
racing, rock music, and tequila
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