Mentors
The AI Sentience Scholars mentors are experienced researchers who propose and supervise the 🔬Research Projects undertaken during the program. Mentors provide guidance, feedback, and domain expertise while supporting scholars in taking ownership of their work.
Mentors typically meet with scholars at least twice per month and help shape a focused, feasible project over the course of the program.
Monash University, Australia
Do embodied neural cultures learn predictive world models through active inference?
Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Testing and Stress-Testing Claims of Global Workspace, World Models, and Valence Dynamics in Large Language Model Agents
Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium
Synthetic pleasure: Can a robot have an orgasm?
Google Research & University of London, UK
Mind and Moral Status Attribution in Large Language Models
University of Montreal, Canada
The Narrative Prior: A Computational Model of Personhood for Advanced AI
Microsoft Research NYC, USA
Mirage of Mind: When Human Inference Projects Sentience onto AI
University of Montreal, Canada
The Narrative Prior: A Computational Model of Personhood for Advanced AI
Florida Atlantic University (FAU)/Center for the Future of AI, Mind and Society, USA
Empirical Tests for Consciousness in AI, Brains, and “Jelly” Systems
University College London, UK
A formal toy framework for implementing the iterative natural kinds strategy in consciousness science
Carnegie Mellon University, USA
ALIGN: Assessing Learning and Internal Geometry of Neural Vision Models through Human Data
Florida Atlantic University (FAU), USA
Empirical Tests for Consciousness in AI, Brains, and “Jelly” Systems
Google Research & University of London, USA
Mind and Moral Status Attribution in Large Language Models
Role and Responsibilities
Mentors guide scholars toward completing the program’s final outputs:
- A written research output (e.g., report, preprint, or conference proceeding paper)
- A seminar/poster presentation (online and at an in-person convening)
The program is flexible: mentors and scholars organize their workflow together. Mentors provide structured guidance while encouraging scholars to take ownership of their projects.
Commitment & Activities
Meetings & coordination:
- Meet with scholars at least twice per month (more if appropriate)
- Help define research questions, milestones, and project scope
- Monitor progress and adjust plans when needed
Research support:
- Support development of a clear research plan
- Provide conceptual and methodological guidance
- Help troubleshoot challenges in analysis, modeling, or interpretation
- Review the written research output for clarity and rigor
- Help scholars prepare and refine their seminar/poster presentations
Mentors will also be asked to complete brief check-in surveys during the program. They are encouraged to share informal career perspectives when relevant.
Participation Reliability
Because this is a small and mentored cohort, reliable engagement is critical. All mentors should ensure they can reliably meet this commitment alongside their other responsibilities. Consistent participation will be formalised through a Commitment Charter at onboarding.
Communication and Coordination
Neuromatch provides a shared Slack workspace for program-wide communication among mentors and scholars.
Teams may use additional communication tools if preferred, but all official announcements and program updates will be shared via Slack.