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1<body><aside aria-label="Sidebar" id="sidebar" class="d-flex flex-column align-items-end"><header class="profile-wrapper"> <a href="/" id="avatar" class="rounded-circle"><img src="/assets/img/ed.jpg" width="112" height="112" alt="avatar" onerror="this.style.display='none'"></a> <a class="site-title d-block" href="/">Ed Grefenstette</a><p class="site-subtitle fst-italic mb-0">Franco-American Computer Scientist, and other things...</p></header><nav class="flex-column flex-grow-1 w-100 ps-0"><ul class="nav"><li class="nav-item"> <a href="/" class="nav-link"> <i class="fa-fw fas fa-home"></i> <span>HOME</span> </a><li class="nav-item"> <a href="/categories/" class="nav-link"> <i class="fa-fw fas fa-stream"></i> <span>CATEGORIES</span> </a><li class="nav-item"> <a href="/tags/" class="nav-link"> <i class="fa-fw fas fa-tags"></i> <span>TAGS</span> </a><li class="nav-item"> <a href="/archives/" class="nav-link"> <i class="fa-fw fas fa-archive"></i> <span>ARCHIVES</span> </a></ul></nav><div class="sidebar-bottom d-flex flex-wrap align-items-center w-100"> <button type="button" class="btn btn-link nav-link" aria-label="Switch Mode" id="mode-toggle"> <i class="fas fa-adjust"></i> </button> <span class="icon-border"></span> <a href="https://twitter.com/egrefen" aria-label="twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" > <i class="fa-brands fa-x-twitter"></i> </a> <a href="/assets/docs/CV.pdf" aria-label="website" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" > <i class="fa fa-briefcase"></i> </a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ezllEwMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" aria-label="website" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" > <i class="fa-brands fa-google-scholar"></i> </a> <a href="javascript:location.href = 'mailto:' + ['edward','egrefen.com'].join('@')" aria-label="email" > <i class="fas fa-envelope"></i> </a></div></aside><div id="main-wrapper" class="d-flex justify-content-center"><div class="container d-flex flex-column px-xxl-5"><header id="topbar-wrapper" class="flex-shrink-0" aria-label="Top Bar"><div id="topbar" class="d-flex align-items-center justify-content-between px-lg-3 h-100" ><nav id="breadcrumb" aria-label="Breadcrumb"> <span>Home</span></nav><button type="button" id="sidebar-trigger" class="btn btn-link" aria-label="Sidebar"> <i class="fas fa-bars fa-fw"></i> </button><div id="topbar-title"></div><button type="button" id="search-trigger" class="btn btn-link" aria-label="Search"> <i class="fas fa-search fa-fw"></i> </button> <search id="search" class="align-items-center ms-3 ms-lg-0"> <i class="fas fa-search fa-fw"></i> <input class="form-control" id="search-input" type="search" aria-label="search" autocomplete="off" placeholder="Search..." > </search> <button type="button" class="btn btn-link text-decoration-none" id="search-cancel">Cancel</button></div></header><div class="row flex-grow-1"><main aria-label="Main Content" class="col-12 col-lg-11 col-xl-9 px-md-4"><article class="px-1"><h1 class="dynamic-title"></h1><div class="content"><blockquote class="prompt-info"><p>You can find a (vaguely) up-to-date version of my CV <a href="/assets/docs/CV.pdf">here</a>.</p></blockquote><p>I am a Franco-(British)-American computer scientist, and serve as Director of Reseach at <a href="https://www.deepmind.com/">Google DeepMind</a>, and as an <a href="https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/65829-edward-grefenstette">Honorary Professor at UCL</a>.</p><h1 id="bio">Bio</h1><p>I previously was Head of Machine Learning at <a href="https://cohere.com/">Cohere</a>, before which I was a Research Scientist and RL Area Lead at <a href="https://ai.meta.com/research/">Facebook AI Research</a> (now Meta), preceded by my time as a Staff Research Scientist at DeepMind, following a (short) period as the CTO of <a href="http://www.darkbluelabs.com/">Dark Blue Labs</a>, which I also co-founded.</p><p>Prior to my move to industry, I was working at the University of Oxford’s Department of Computer Science, and was a Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College, while also lecturing at Hertford College to students taking Oxford’s new computer science and philosophy course.</p><p>Before coming to Oxford’s DCS in 2008 to do the MSc which led to my DPhil, I did graduate work in the philosophy departments at the University of St Andrews in mathematical logic, the foundation of mathematics, and some philosophy of language. Prior to this, I obtained a BSc in Physics &amp; Philosophy from the University of Sheffield. Before that, I grew up in France (Tours and Grenoble) and the US (Pittsburgh, PA).</p><h1 id="research">Research</h1><p>I’ve developed and worked on a number of research interests over the years, from participating in the early days of the current wave of deep learning for language understanding and generation, to the intersection of reinfor

1cement learning and language, via meta-learning and reward modelling. At the heart of my interests lies a fundamental desire to build AI systems which can match or exceed human capabilities on tasks which makes humanity better, and learn in more human-like and human-aligned ways.</p></div></article></main><aside aria-label="Panel" id="panel-wrapper" class="col-xl-3 ps-2 text-muted"><div class="access"></div></aside></div><div class="row"><div id="tail-wrapper" class="col-12 col-lg-11 col-xl-9 px-md-4"><footer aria-label="Site Info" class=" d-flex flex-column justify-content-center text-muted flex-lg-row justify-content-lg-between align-items-lg-center pb-lg-3 " ><p>© <time>2025</time> <a href="https://twitter.com/egrefen">Edward Grefenstette</a>. <span data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-placement="top" title="Except where otherwise noted, the blog posts on this site are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License by the author." >Some rights reserved.</span></p><p>Using the <a data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-placement="top" title="v7.3.1" href="https://github.com/cotes2020/jekyll-theme-chirpy" target="_blank" rel="noopener" >Chirpy</a> theme for <a href="https://jekyllrb.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jekyll</a>.</p></footer></div></div><div id="search-result-wrapper" class="d-flex justify-content-center d-none"><div class="col-11 content"><div id="search-hints"></div><div id="search-results" class="d-flex flex-wrap justify-content-center text-muted mt-3"></div></div></div></div><aside aria-label="Scroll to Top"> <button id="back-to-top" type="button" class="btn btn-lg btn-box-shadow"> <i class="fas fa-angle-up"></i> </button></aside></div><div id="mask" class="d-none position-fixed w-100 h-100 z-1"></div><aside id="notification" class="toast" role="alert" aria-live="assertive" aria-atomic="true" data-bs-animation="true" data-bs-autohide="false" ><div class="toast-header"> <button type="button" class="btn-close ms-auto" data-bs-dismiss="toast" aria-label="Close" ></button></div><div class="toast-body text-center pt-0"><p class="px-2 mb-3">A new version of content is available.</p><button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" aria-label="Update"> Update </button></div></aside>

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