Welcoming New Members of the Metaculus Leadership Team

Metaculus
3 min readOct 19, 2022

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Over the last few months, the Metaculus team has been working to bring great new people into the organization within multiple functions. So far, we have received 923 applications for 13 roles in engineering, research, data science, forecasting programs, operations, community management, and administration.

Today, we are very excited to introduce four new members of the Metaculus leadership team. Adding their diverse and rich professional experience to our team will significantly expand our overall capacity, from building new features and managing organizational partnerships, to publishing forecasting research and engaging with the forecasting community.

Please join us in extending a very warm welcome to our new leadership team members! Read on for their bios and some information about what they’ll be working on:

Dan Schwarz, Chief Technology Officer. Dan has direct experience building a large-scale prediction platform. From 2019–2022, he built and ran Google’s internal prediction market, Gleangen, which is now the largest corporate forecasting platform by a factor of at least two. He previously served on the engineering teams at Google Search and self-driving car startup Waymo.

As Chief Technology Officer, Dan will provide strong technical leadership and execution as we build scalable infrastructure, add new capabilities, and expand our platform. He’s excited about significantly growing and leading our engineering team, and developing and executing a high-impact technology roadmap.

Alex Leader, Forecasting Program Director. Alex has highly relevant experience leading innovation initiatives in the public and private sectors: as a consultant for the US government with Luminary Labs, Alex designed and implemented strategies and programs that advanced scientific discovery and the adoption of emerging technologies. In previous roles, he has also leveraged data science, natural language processing, and related ML techniques to create solutions for clients at Amenity Analytics and Dataminr. Alex is currently an Advisory Council Member with the AI for Good Foundation.

In his new role, Alex will be building and leading our Forecasting Programs team, augmenting the value we bring to our partner ecosystem, and developing strategies that leverage forecasting to generate sound analysis and recommendations for partners, policymakers, and the public.

Anastasia Miliano, Director of Special Projects. With a background in both mechanical engineering and the startup world, Anastasia is skilled in building systems and structures to help organizations scale. Anastasia spent the last seven years as the right-hand-person to the CEO at two different mission-focused startups through periods of intense growth: first as Chief Operating Officer at Bitsbox, a startup that develops B2C coding curricula for kids, and then as Head of Client Success at Avela, an MIT spinout that designs products to advance equity in enrollment and admissions. At both companies, she was the first hire after the founders, which speaks to her ability to tame ambiguity and thrive in the early stages of organization building.

As Director of Special Projects, Anastasia will lead the execution of strategically important projects, collaborating with multiple teams and external stakeholders. In her role, Anastasia will create alignment and build momentum across diverse groups, identify opportunities for creative wins, and apply resources efficiently.

Nate Morrison, Chief of Staff. Nate has extensive leadership experience, earned through a career in public service. Nate served as Executive Director of Teach For America — New Mexico for six years; launched an initiative to expand opportunities in computer science for Native youth; and co-led the NACA Inspired Schools Network as Operating Officer. His interest in forecasting extends back to his senior thesis at Princeton, where he ran a series of experiments to evaluate concerns around the manipulation of prediction markets.

At Metaculus, Nate will define, support, and lead strategic initiatives; build and manage day-to-day operations; and represent Metaculus with partners. He will work closely with our CEO and leadership team to meet our most important goals.

These leadership team members join us as we continue to expand, and they will do a great deal to support our growth process. Current open roles include positions in engineering, forecasting programs, and on our dedicated AI forecasting team — find out more here.

Expanding our leadership team is a critical step in Metaculus’s evolution as an organization. We appreciate all who applied for a role, and we are grateful to have the support of strong partners and the forecasting community as we continue to pursue our mission to build epistemic infrastructure that enables the global community to model, understand, predict, and navigate the world’s most important and complex challenges.

Onward,

Gaia Dempsey
CEO, Metaculus

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