Workshops and Events Lead

Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative•Cambridge, MA

9d•$90,000 - $150,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative (CBAI) is a nonprofit research organization focused on advancing AI safety research and education. They organize workshops, fellowship programs, and networking events to connect researchers, students, and practitioners in the AI safety field. CBAI is expanding its operations, including doubling its fellowship cohort and quadrupling its team. The organization has been a central hub for AI safety in Cambridge since late 2022, fostering connections between researchers at Harvard, MIT, and Northeastern. This role is primarily responsible for the operations of the Harvard-MIT AI Safety Workshops, which aim to guide students toward high-impact AI safety careers. The workshops have a strong track record, with past participants securing positions at leading AI organizations. The ideal candidate will manage the entire planning and execution process, from speaker selection and attendee recruitment to session structure and event setup. For candidates with strong operational skills but less AI safety expertise, there's an opportunity to learn and grow within the role. The position also offers significant networking opportunities with professionals in the AI safety field and the chance to build relationships within the Harvard-MIT AI safety community. Secondary responsibilities may include supporting other CBAI events, such as monthly networking events and research workshops with Harvard and MIT groups.

Requirements

Mission-aligned — you care about making AI development go well, and want to contribute to building the research community working on it
Experience in operations, event production, or program management — or a track record of equivalent responsibility (e.g. having run conferences, retreats, etc. end-to-end)
Demonstrated ability to own logistics for in-person events of ~50 people: venue coordination, catering, transportation, and physical setup/teardown
Exceptional organization and attention to detail — able to track dozens of parallel workstreams (speaker outreach, applications, vendor contracts) without dropped balls
Strong written communication for professional outreach to senior researchers, guests, and university partners
Comfort working with tools like Airtable and application/review pipelines (or ability to pick them up quickly)
Based in (or willing to relocate to) the Cambridge–Boston area
The ideal candidate will have meaningful experience in event production, academic program coordination, or research community building — ideally in a university, think tank, or mission-driven research organization context. What matters most is that you've built events that people genuinely valued, and that you bring demonstrated judgment in curating rooms that produce real intellectual and professional value.
U.S. work authorization required (we accept OPT).

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with the AI safety research landscape – enough to make independent judgment calls on speaker selection, workshop topics, and applicant quality
Existing relationships or network in AI safety organizations
Experience working with or in university student organizations, especially AI safety groups like AISST or MAIA
Strong verbal communication skills, such that you could give an opening or closing talk

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end planning and execution of the Harvard-MIT AI Safety Workshops, currently held 5 times per academic year in Essex, MA, with ~40 participants and ~10 guests per workshop
Work with the Harvard AI Safety Student Team (AISST) and MIT AI Alignment (MAIA) to scale the program from 5 to 8 workshops per academic calendar year
Curate and invite guests from frontier AI safety research organizations, including Redwood Research, METR, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, OpenAI's safety teams, and Cambridge-area academics
Lead participant selection in collaboration with AISST and MAIA, ensuring cohort quality and diversity across partnering university groups
Design workshop programming: session formats, discussion structures, speaker slots, and career programming
Gather and synthesize participant and guest feedback to continuously improve workshop quality
Identify and source opportunities for high-visibility, weekend-long specialized research workshops in partnership with Harvard, MIT, and Northeastern research groups as well as other stakeholders (e.g., Cambridge AI Research Directions Workshop we run in partnership with FAR.AI)
Build relationships with faculty and research group leads to develop workshop concepts that serve genuine research needs
Own end-to-end execution: venue, logistics, programming design, speaker coordination, and participant experience
As the portfolio grows, take on a managerial dimension; coordinating contractors, volunteers, or support staff to run larger events effectively
Own and run CBAI's monthly Cambridge AI Safety and AIxBiosecurity (in partnership with SecureBio) networking events, serving as the connective tissue between researchers, students, and practitioners across the city
Curate invitee lists, manage outreach, and create programming that makes each event genuinely worth attending
Build and maintain CBAI's relationships with the broader Cambridge AI safety community, using events as a vehicle for strengthening the ecosystem