Researcher Spotlight: Alexandra Abbas

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Researcher Spotlights highlight the global community at the heart of Apart Research. We have so many incredible, talented researchers at Apart Research - this series will help you to get to know them a little better.

Alexandra Abbas is currently a Fellow with us here at Apart, where she is focusing on studying the robustness of adversarial fine tuning techniques against the ablation of the refusal feature.

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Hey Alexandra! Tell us a bit about you.

"I’m a mix! My mom is Hungarian and my dad is Syrian. I was born and raised in Hungary. I lived in a Hungarian town called Szeged in the south of the country until age 18. I then moved to Budapest to pursue my Bachelors degree in Economics. I moved to Glasgow, Scotland for my Masters in Big Data and then to London for work. I’ve been living in London ever since and I consider myself a true East Londoner! Recently I embarked on a journey as a digital nomad in SEA exploring countries like Vietnam and Indonesia."

Hobbies outside of AI safety work?

"Sports, I’m big on sports! Tennis, bouldering, running, yoga, surfing, I enjoy them all. Since I’ve been travelling, sightseeing, visiting museums, learning about different cultures, languages and history have become my new hobbies."

When did you first hear about Apart Research?

"I heard about it through the AI Alignment Course by BlueDot Impact. It must have been a post about a hackathon in one of their Slack channels."

Did you join any Hackathons?

"Yes, I joined a hackathon with my friend, Nora where we contributed tasks to the METR task suite. I designed and developed a task where an agent is required to use Terraform to provision compute resources in the cloud. Nora and I ended up joining the Lab program shortly after and we’ve been working together on a research project since then!"

When did you get interested in AI?

"I’ve been interested in ML since my university studies, that’s why I decided to pursue a masters in Big Data which taught me a combination of data engineering and data science. I’ve been closely following the developments in the field since then. Previously working in industry roles I’ve been more involved in the applied ML/AI side, but I’ve been following the major research improvements nonetheless."

When did you get interested in AI safety?

“I don’t quite remember what made me join the AI Alignment Course from BlueDot Impact February this year but it was definitely the course itself that strengthened my conviction that I should invest more in this field."

Can you see yourself pursuing technical research on AI safety after this Lab experience with Apart?

"Yes, this is in fact my goal! I’m involved in AI safety projects more in a software engineering capacity but I’d like to transition into research engineering over time. Currently I’m working as a Technical Project Manager at the AI Safety Engineering Taskforce (ASET) which is a remote-based programme that supports software engineers with upskilling for career transition into AI safety while meaningfully contributing to the work of partner organisations like the UK’s AI Safety Institute and METR."

Would you tell others to join Apart's programmes?

"Absolutely, the Lab experience has given me the foundations and confidence to pursue a more research-oriented career in AI safety even though I’m not coming from an academic background."

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Alexandra is on LinkedIn.