Welcoming our new Director of Research, Shaowei Lin
We’re delighted to announce that Shaowei Lin has joined Topos as our new Director of Research.
Last August, we began exploring a Director of Research role at Topos, in order to provide new scientific leadership, administration, and coordination for our growing team. We’re excited to announce that Shaowei Lin has now taken up this challenging and crucial role.
Shaowei’s experience spans mathematical research (including as Assistant Professor in Engineering Systems and Design at Singapore University of Technology and Design), research administration (Deputy Head (Research) of the Sense-making Group at the Institute of Infocomm Research, Singapore), and launching and leading scientific start-ups (Head of AI at Awecom).
In addition, through his career, Shaowei has been involved in planning and executing over USD 10M of research grant funding. He thus brings a wealth of expertise across the exact mix of duties underpinning our Director of Research role. Shaowei completed his PhD on Algebraic Statistics at UC Berkeley under the supervision of Bernd Sturmfels, and holds a BS in Mathematics from Stanford.
Shaowei has long been a supporter and advocate for Topos, reaching out in early 2021 when we were just beginning operations. He spoke about program synthesis in the Topos Colloquium in April 2021, and has visited Topos Berkeley for a number of events, including Dana Scott’s 90th birthday celebration, and our recent Advisory Council Retreat.
At the same time, David Spivak will be transitioning to a new, dual role as Senior Scientist and Institute Fellow. This role reflects a greater focus on leading his connected intelligence research agenda at Topos, centered around his new $1.8M AFOSR grant Structure and Dynamics of Working Language. As Institute Fellow, we’re thrilled that David will continue his essential work as a leading advocate for Topos – collaborating with his network to expand our support base across government, industry, and philanthropy – and will continue to serve as part of our Leadership team. We’re very grateful for David’s pivotally important service as Chief Scientist, and know that both he and Topos will continue to thrive as his role evolves to bring more focus to his world-leading research.
Please join me in giving Shaowei a warm welcome to our team. We’re extremely excited about this next stage in Topos’ growth, as we pursue a world in which the systems that surround us benefit us all.
