Vista Institute AI Policy Fellowship is sponsored by Vista Institute for AI Policy. The Vista Institute for AI Policy offers grant-based fellowships supporting independent research or research assistance positions focused on AI policy. The program targets students and recent graduates who want to contribute to AI governance and policy research.

Vista sponsors students and recent graduates to undertake independent research with mentor guidance or to serve as research assistants with law professors and other AI policy experts. Most fellows are selected through Vista's courses and the AI Law and Policy Workshop. While we anticipate funding few unsolicited proposals, you are encouraged to reach out here if you have a project idea seeking funding or mentorship support.

FALL 2025 RESEARCH FELLOWS Hilal Aka is a joint JD–MPP candidate at Georgetown University Law Center and Harvard Kennedy School, focusing on AI, technology policy, and national security. She previously worked at the Center for a New American Security and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation on U.S. technology and innovation policy, and as an economic consultant on antitrust matters.

She holds a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Wellesley College. Hilal is building a corporate legal compliance benchmark for AI systems with Joe Kwon and Prof. Noam Kolt, testing how AI agents handle context-dependent illegality across areas such as securities regulation, bankruptcy, and insider trading rules. Joel Naoki Christoph is a PhD researcher in economics at the European University Institute.

His work focuses on macroeconomics, AI governance, and international security. As a Vista AI Law and Policy Fellow, he works with Professor Gabriel Weil on the law and economics of AI liability, with emphasis on judgment proofness, insurance design, and administrative penalties for high-impact AI risks.

He has previously held research fellowships at the Centre for the Governance of AI, the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Atlantic Council, working on compute governance and the political economy of emerging technologies. Colette Le Brannan graduated with a B. S.

from Stanford in 2019 and a J. D. from Yale Law School in 2023.

She has experience in child welfare, environmental, and insurance law. She is particularly interested in litigation and how AI will fit into or influence liability frameworks. Colette is working with Dr. Anat Lior on multiple projects relating to AI class action litigation, AI agency and respondeat superior, and guidelines addressing the unauthorized practice of law involving AI.

Joe Kwon is building a corporate law compliance benchmark for AI systems with Hilal Aka and Prof. Noam Kolt. Joe currently works on technical AI policy and governance. Previously, he worked as a research engineer in industry, and on AI and cognitive science research in academia.

Under the guidance of Prof. Peter Salib, Mark is conducting research examining the role of safety evaluations in proving developer fault in AI system-caused harm. Mark is also a Junior Research Scholar at ILINA, a Research Fellow at the Centre for AI Risk Management and Alignment (CARMA) and a Researcher at the University of Cape Town AI Initiative.

At ILINA, his current research focuses on the role of law and policy in strengthening model evaluations. At CARMA, he is working with Abra Ganz to determine what whistleblower protections US-based AI safety evaluation organisations have when reporting concerns about frontier AI companies.

At UCT, he is part of a group conducting Africa-oriented model safety evaluations at the African Hub on AI Safety, Peace and Security to guide the policy and governance of highly capable AI within the continent. Mark holds an undergraduate law degree (top student, first class honors) from Strathmore University.

Through the Vista Fellowship, Matt is researching the regulatory, institutional, and technical frictions slowing AI's transition from digital applications to physical-world impact in the biotech sector with Abi Olvera (Golden Gate Institute). He is also currently conducting research into cloud export control policy with Onni Aarne (IAPS), and works part-time as a Senior Program Associate at ERA.

Previously, Matt was a research fellow at Convergence Analysis, where he published a report mapping the economic factors shaping AI diffusion across sectors. Matt has a private-sector hardware background, most recently as a product manager at IBM. He holds an MPhil in technology policy from the University of Cambridge and a BA in mathematics and economics from Washington University in St.

Louis. Patrick is currently working part time with Nikhil Mulani of Augur on a report on public and private investment across the frontier AI supply chain—from raw materials to finished models—including recommendations for the US government. Previously, he was a summer fellow with ERA Cambridge where he researched China's efforts to indigenize EUV technology for its semiconductor supply chain.

Patrick is also a facilitator for the Center for AI Safety 'AI Safety, Ethics, and Society' course. He has a policy degree from Columbia SIPA and has previously interned across the US government and the UN system. Prior to pivoting to AI, Patrick has variously worked as a classroom teacher, a full-time public health researcher, and a conservationist in New Mexico.

Starting January 2026, Patrick will be a Winter Fellow with GovAI in London. FALL 2024 RESEARCH FELLOWS Vista sponsored Janelle to serve as a Research Assistant to professors Matthew Tokson and Yonathan Arbel. Vista sponsored Joey to serve as a Research Assistant to professor Gabriel Weil.

[](https://www. linkedin. com/company/100486598/admin/feed/posts/) The Vista Institute for AI Policy is a fiscally sponsored project of Rethink Priorities, EIN 84-3896318.