Mox is an incubator and mission driven community space for researchers, startups, and tech advocacy organizations. We're excited to host researchers, domain specialists and builders through the J-1 Expert (J-1 Specialist and J-1 Researcher) visa programs to help create new frontier technology collaborations within the Mox community and internationally. If you're an expert in AI safety, biotech, or another of our focus areas and want to spend time developing ideas or building projects alongside Mox’s community in San Francisco, you should apply!

Objectives

In this fellowship program, you’ll conduct self-directed collaborative research and/or develop your own startup/project(s) in one of our focus areas.

Mox’s role is to support and supervise you as your host organization and incubator. You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in Mox events and experience SF culture (here are some examples of past events), and present your research or work to a wider audience via hackathons and demo days.

Visiting Fellows are also encouraged to work with companies in the Mox community & others within the focus of their program, including doing paid consulting work with advance approval (which is a quick process).

Requirements

To qualify for this program, you must:

1. Be an expert in a field of specialized knowledge or skill relevant to Mox, such as: Machine learning research, AI governance, biotech, biosecurity, entrepreneurship, fieldbuilding, or animal welfare.
2. In 1-2 paragraphs, propose a 6-month or year-long program of self-guided research or project incubation which excites the Mox team. This could include building a startup, or working on projects/research ideas with orgs connected to Mox’s program areas. Your application should explain your rationale for doing it at Mox, and some outcomes you expect to achieve by the end of the program.
3. Collaborate with Mox partner orgs and founders, in-person at Mox, 3+ days in a typical week.
4. Attend twice-monthly check-ins with your Mox supervisor about your program progress.
5. Prove you can cover your own costs while in the US (we don't provide a salary or stipend).
6. Meet any other requirements from the J-1 sponsor organization we connect you with, including their fees.

We also vet applicants according to our standard membership criteria for people who would be stellar members of the Mox community regardless of nationality. To compensate for hosting costs and legal fees, we charge our Resident tier membership fee of $780/month (this includes a dedicated desk in our coworking space, and all other membership benefits).

Timeline

We accept applications on a rolling basis, and there is no application deadline. We partner with multiple State Department-Designated J-1 Sponsors and use 10zeros for compliance, which means we can usually process people who qualify into the program pretty quickly (as short as 1-2 weeks).

The program lasts up to one year. Repeat participation is possible if it’s a good fit.

How to apply

This is a pilot program. If you’re interested, please contact me directly with a self-guided program proposal compatible with the requirements above.