Benjamin Anderson
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Experience

Machine Learning Researcher

CarperAI

2023


Founding Engineer

Stealth Startup

2022 – Present


Empirical Research Fellow

Stanford Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab

2020 – 2022


Software Engineer

Element Energy

2020


Data Engineer

Bluebonnet Data Fellowship

2020


Investment Associate Intern

Bridgewater Associates

2018 – 2019


Energy Analyst

D.E. Shaw & Co.

2017

Publications & Papers

Measuring the Effectiveness of COVID-19 Surveillance Strategies to Identify Transmission Links with Whole-Genome Sequencing Data

Benjamin Anderson, Derek Ouyang, Vit Kraushaar, Alexis D’Agostino, Sarah L. Rudman, Brandon Bonin, and Daniel E. Ho

Under review

We use whole-genome sequencing data to measure the effectiveness of different COVID-19 disease surveillance strategies used by Santa Clara County to identify possible transmission links.


A Language-Matching Model to Improve Equity and Efficiency of COVID-19 Contact Tracing

Lisa Lu, Benjamin Anderson, Raymond Ha, Alexis D’Agostino, Sarah L. Rudman, Derek Ouyang, and Daniel E. Ho

PNAS, October 2021

✨ Recognized with the Innovative Practice Gold Award by the National Association of County and City Health Officials

We implement an interpretable language-matching model to predict likelihood of patients being low English-proficiency Spanish speakers, in order to assign them to Spanish-speaking contact tracers and avoid the friction of translation services. [Journal Link] [PDF]


Evaluation of Allocation Schemes of COVID-19 Testing Resources in a Community-Based Door-to-Door Testing Program

Ben Chugg, Lisa Lu, Derek Ouyang, Benjamin Anderson, Raymond Ha, Alexis D’Agostino, Anandi Sujeer, Sarah L. Rudman, Analilia Garcia, Daniel E. Ho

JAMA Health Forum, August 2021

We use an active learning approach based on the COVID-19 positivity rate to sample locations to send door-to-door Spanish-speaking health workers in vulnerable communities. We compare this approach to allowing the community health workers to leverage local knowledge. [Journal Link] [PDF]


(Not) Your Type: Race, Dating, and Wrongful Discrimination

Benjamin Anderson

Ethics in Society Honors Thesis

✨ Winner of the Lyle and Olive Cook Prize for Best Honors Thesis

I analyze theories of wrongful discrimination, and explore how they might be applied to the problem of racial preferences in romantic and sexual relationships. I lay out the ethical problems associated with racial preferences, and survey the existing social science research. I introduce two philosophical accounts of what makes discrimination wrong—one based on demeaning, and another based on harm. I consider what resources these theories of discrimination can provide in service of an argument about the moral status of racial preferences. Finally, I consider the limitations of viewing racial preferences through the lens of discrimination. [PDF]

Education

Stanford University

M.S. in Computer Science, 4.0 GPA


Stanford University

B.A. in Philosophy with distinction, 4.1 GPA

Skills

Extracurriculars