Samantha Bennett

Samantha is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy (Symbolic Systems) at Stanford. She is also an EDGE Fellow (Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education) and a Graduate Student Fellow at the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society. Her research and writing focus on emerging, catastrophic, and existential risk topics and the qualitative and quantitative methodologies we use to evaluate them. Previously, she worked across tech, law, and finance — she has done everything from evaluating AI startups to helping individuals pursue legal action for Clean Air Act violations, exposures to dangerous pesticides, and data breaches. She also founded a crowdsourcing platform bringing the power of open-source research methods to complex emerging risks from microplastics to algorithmic bias. She holds an MA in Philosophy from the University of St. Andrews (summa cum laude) as well as a law conversion degree.