Astera Residency Program

Astera Residency Program is sponsored by Astera Institute. A one-year, fully funded residency for high-agency scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to create open science public goods. Residents receive a competitive salary, an additional budget for a team and project expenses, and access to substantial compute and laboratory resources. Projects must yield open, accessible, and nonproprietary research or products that have a high potential for societal impact.

Geographic focus: Global (requires relocation to Emeryville, CA, USA)

Focus areas: Open Science, Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Climate Technology, Space Systems, Biotech

Experiment boldly, build openly Astera’s residency program is a 12 to 18-month, fully funded program centered on the creation of public goods. About the residency program We provide talented innovators with both salary and research budgets required to create high-impact public goods.

Projects we support could take the shape of infrastructure, tools, standards, hardware, software, thought leadership, or wetware, as well as pre-commercial fundamental research that can enable progress across Astera’s key focus areas: Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence, AI-enabled Life Sciences, and Open Science.

We support projects before it’s clear whether they will one day become nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, or one-off outputs in the public domain. We deliberately enter at the earliest stages, when unknowns are high, traditional funding sources fall short, and a small amount of catalytic support can generate the most new information.

Rather than planning indefinitely, we believe the fastest path to understanding what’s worth building is to build it. The general expectation is that all work will be published openly and accessibly, in line with our Open Science Policy. However, terms can be negotiated during the application process for projects with potential commercial interests.

We welcome new residents to each cohort in Emeryville, California, where we are building an in-person hub for open science, data, and technology. For the Fall 2026 cohort, applicants can apply to one or more of the below tracks.

More detail for each is available in the application: Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence Life Sciences and Open Science Other: if your project doesn’t fit neatly into the above tracks but feels like a strong fit for Astera’s mission, we still want to hear from you.

What we offer to residents Salary of between $125,000-250,000 annually (commensurate with experience) and benefits for the duration of your residency Additional negotiated budget to cover project expenses (e.g. lab, infrastructure, compute, licenses, personnel), which can range from $0-$1.

5M depending on project needs Compute resources via Voltage Park, including on-demand access to 24,000 NVIDIA HGX H100s and access to a reserved fleet of B200s and GB300s Dedicated workspace at our Emeryville hub with shared amenities and events A community of like-minded technologists tackling bold challenges in intelligence and the life sciences Applications are now open for our Fall 2026 cohort!

Apply here by April 19th for an August 17th start date. What we’re seeking for our residencies We are prioritizing projects that align with Astera’s focus areas, where our expertise and resources can meaningfully accelerate progress. The proposed work should be early stage and well scoped for a 12–18 month residency.

Projects should build things that people will actually use—tools, infrastructure, or insights with real pathways to adoption. In the long run, this work should advance outcomes that benefit society broadly. The majority of work should be open, accessible, and non-proprietary.

Residents should enable others to build on their outputs and be willing to share both what worked and what did not, so others can learn from the full arc of the work. The proposed work should be well matched to the people doing it. Residents should bring the relevant expertise, judgment, and agency, be aligned with Astera’s principles, and contribute positively to the intellectual and collaborative fabric of the Astera community.

Our Residents are hungry, dedicated, and opinionated entrepreneurs. They have a theory of change they’re testing, and they’re doing it with urgency. Building brain-like models Studying sunlight reflection to limit climate impact Accessing the health benefits of fermented foods Modeling the Earth’s ice sheets