MATS Autumn 2026
The Autumn 2026 program will run for 10 weeks in Berkeley, CA and London, UK from September 28th to December 4th. Fellows will receive mentorship from world-class researchers and at organizations like Anthropic, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Redwood Research, and ARC, with the option to apply for a 6–12 month funded extension beyond the main program. For the first time, we are running Founding & Field-Building and Biosecurity tracks.
Applications are now open. Apply by June 7th.
Program phases
Key dates for the application and admissions timeline
Applications typically open several months before the program begins. Applicants complete a multi-stage admissions process, beginning with a general application. Depending on the tracks, streams, and mentors they apply to, applicants may also complete additional evaluations such as interviews, work tests, coding assessments, or writing samples before final admissions decisions are made.
In stage one, applicants apply to one or more tracks (broad research areas): Empirical, Theory, Strategy & Forecasting, Policy & Governance, System Security, Biosecurity, and Founding & Field-Building. In stage two, advancing applicants choose specific streams within those tracks, each led by one or more mentors with their own research agenda. You can view this list as a grid here.
Fourth Eon is developing adaptive, AI-native safeguards across the biotechnology stack, with a focus on function-based DNA synthesis screening. Fellows in this stream will work on technical research projects at the intersection of AI and biosecurity. Projects span topics like mechanistic interpretability of protein foundation models, bio model evaluations for biosecurity-relevant capabilities, and agentic sequence analysis workflows.
We are looking for fellows with a significant background in the biological sciences and/or a founder's perspective to work on and support the Bio Action Plan.
George Robinson
This stream will focus on monitoring, stress-testing safety methods, and evals, with a focus on risks from scheming AIs. Examples include (black-box) AI control techniques, white-box monitors (probes etc.), chain-of-thought monitoring/faithfulness, building evaluation environments, and stress-testing mitigations.
Advance global DNA synthesis through projects on customer screening, mapping synthesis companies, benchtop integration, and sequence of concern annotation.
Jacob Swett
This stream will focus on projects related to biosecurity countermeasures.
This stream focuses on physical access controls for biotech governance: live pathogen repositories, CROs, cloud labs, cell-free expression systems, plasmid vendors, or secondhand lab equipment.
On high-conviction areas, you'll tackle specific open research questions and assess interventions; on exploratory areas, you'll conduct deep dives to determine whether they're worth pursuing. Your findings will directly shape Sentinel's grantmaking strategy and provide strategic guidance to the broader biosecurity community.
Implementing SL4/5 and searching for differentially defense-favored security tools.
Community at MATS
MATS Research phase provides scholars with a community of peers.
Scholars work out of a shared office and are supported by the Community Team.
MATS alumni report that the connections with peers that they made during MATS have had the largest impact on them years later. Our full-time Community Team works to facilitate these connections and also provide general well-being support. Weekly lightning talks, scholar-led discussion groups, game nights, and outings to SF are some examples of MATS events.