CV

A PDF version of my resume is available here.

Cognitive scientist (Ph.D., MIT) working at the intersection of research, open scientific tooling, and applied institution-building.

Current roles

• Scientific Director, Dabtong House, Thimphu, Bhutan (2026–present)
  • Founded a non-profit that funds and coordinates projects in Bhutan spanning AI, space research, novel construction methods and traditional craft
  • Run the AI Studio programme, building a community of technologists in Bhutan
• Program Director, Technology Commons Alliance, Palo Alto, CA (2026–present)
  • Advancing infrastructure for openly-governed AI

• Advisor, Gaudiy, Inc., Tokyo, Japan (2026–present)

• Researcher, Henkaku Center, Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan (2024–present)
  • Leading research collaborations between Chiba Institute of Technology and Bhutan’s sovereign wealth fund and government technology agencies
  • Integrating AI tooling into Chiba Tech’s curricula with industry partners

Previous experience

• Project Manager, Gelephu Mindfulness City, Bhutan (2024–2026)
  • Founding member of the Gelephu Mindfulness City (“GMC”) team, an autonomous Special Administrative Region in southern Bhutan led by His Majesty the King, building an economic hub that measures success with Gross National Happiness
  • Set up a corporate registry with lawyers, tax experts and engineers, onboarding the first ~50 companies; migrated thousands of businesses into GMC’s independent registry, tax, and customs framework
  • Researched and implemented policy on commercial company matters, land ownership and digital assets
• Visiting Research Scientist, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT (2024–2025)
  • Advised on and extended software built during my PhD; studied function learning in infants and toddlers (PI: Prof. Laura Schulz)
• PhD Student, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT (2019–2024)
  • Devised an automated pipeline for collecting infant behavioral data, a 15x speed-up over traditional methods, collecting data from >700 infants
  • Developed a rational choice model of attention (optimal decision theory + Bayesian inference), resulting in three first-author publications
  • Core member of the ManyBabies 2 and ManyBabies 5 analysis teams, organizing a consortium of labs to replicate key results in Theory of Mind and attentional preferences
  • Supervised 12 undergraduate and Masters students; Head TA for “Infant and Early Childhood Cognition”
• Visiting Student, Hitachi R&D, Hatoyama, Japan (2018–2019)
  • Statistical tools for the analysis of functional near-infrared spectroscopy data
• Intern, Oliver Wyman, the Netherlands (2017)
  • Credit risk modeling for a large European bank
• Project Intern, Active Sensing Lab, Weizmann Institute of Science (2016)
  • Sensory substitution from visual to tactile information

Education

• Ph.D. in Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT, 2024 (4.0 GPA)
• M.Sc. in Psychological Research, University of Oxford, 2018 (with distinction)
• B.Sc. (Hons.) in Liberal Arts and Sciences, University College Utrecht, 2016 (summa cum laude)

Awards

• Best Paper in Developmental Psychology, American Psychological Association, 2024
• ICoN Graduate Fellowship, 2022–2024
• Walle Nauta Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2021
• Cheng Graduate Fellowship, 2020
• Humphrey Prize for Best Research Project Dissertation in MSc cohort, 2018
• Full scholarship for MSc studies, German Academic Exchange Service, 2017
• Kupcinet-Getz Scholar, Weizmann Institute of Science, 2016

Selected publications

Full list on Google Scholar.

• ManyBabies 5 Consortium (in prep). A large-scale investigation of the proposed shift from familiarity to novelty preference in infant looking time.
• ManyBabies 2 Consortium (under review). Action anticipation based on an agent’s epistemic state in toddlers and adults.
• Raz, G.*, Cao, A.*, Saxe, R., & Frank, M.C. (2025). A stimulus-computable rational model of habituation in infants and adults. eLife. (*equal contribution)
• Raz, G., Piccolo, S., Medrano, J., Liu, S., Lydic, K., et al. (2024). An asynchronous, hands-off workflow for looking time experiments with infants. Developmental Psychology. (Editor’s Choice Award)
• Raz, G. & Saxe, R. (2020). Learning in Infancy Is Active, Endogenously Motivated, and Depends on the Prefrontal Cortices. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 2, 247–268.

Community service and outreach

• Volunteer, Dhamma Meditation Centers (2017–present) — serve at 10-day silent retreats in Germany, Israel and the UK; lead teams of 8–10 cooking for 100–200 meditators
• Graduate Student Council, MIT School of Science (2020–2024) — advised the Dean’s office; implemented an internship policy and relocation stipend for incoming graduates
• English & Math teacher, Lamdon Jamyang School, Ladakh (2017) — 6-month placement teaching children aged 6–13 in northern India

Skills

• Languages: German, English and Hebrew (fluent), Spanish (B2), Korean (A1)
• Programming (in order of proficiency): Python, R, Stan, MATLAB, JavaScript, Unity scripting (C#), WebPPL
• Teaching certifications: Graduate Teaching Certificate, MIT Teaching + Learning Lab; TEFL Certificate (120-hour course)