Chen CCST AI Science Residency launch (web)

Citation

California Council on Science and Technology (CCST). “CCST Launches California AI Science Residency Program on Frontier AI Safety with Appointment of First AI Science Advisors to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and Department of Technology.” Press release, Sacramento, July 7, 2026. https://ccst.us/ccst-launches-california-ai-science-residency/. Read 2026-11-06.

Bottom line

CCST placed Michael Chen as AI Science Advisor at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES). The advisors began their residencies in June 2026.
The release gives his duties, his reporting line and his past work at METR, NIST contacts and UC Berkeley.

Background

The CCST press release that launched the AI Science Residency Program. It names the two first advisors, Michael Chen at Cal OES and Justin Norman at the California Department of Technology (CDT). This is a profile page. Michael Chen’s entity page lists it; no reading list does.

Key claims

“The two inaugural AI Science Advisors were placed at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) and the California Department of Technology (CDT) to advise on frontier AI safety.” (paragraph 1)
“The advisors began their residencies in June 2026.” (paragraph 2)
“Michael Chen will advise senior leadership on frontier AI safety and risk assessment, with a particular emphasis on critical safety incidents, AI and cyber defense, and risk from developers’ internal deployment of AI, such as sabotage by AI agents and automated AI R&D.” (AI Science Advisor to Cal OES)
“As AI Science Advisor to Cal OES, Michael reports to Commander of the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC) Matthew Sage and works closely with the Homeland Security Cyber Policy Team.” (AI Science Advisor to Cal OES)
“Michael previously worked on evaluations-based AI governance at METR, an independent California-based nonprofit evaluator of autonomous AI agent capabilities and risks.” (AI Science Advisor to Cal OES)
“He also assisted with third-party evaluations, including a review of a developer’s report assessing sabotage risk from AI agents” (AI Science Advisor to Cal OES)
“Michael has engaged with U.S. government bodies on frontier AI evaluation, including the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and conducted research at UC Berkeley’s Center for Human-Compatible AI on learning human preferences for language models.” (AI Science Advisor to Cal OES)
“AI Science Advisors are formally employed by CCST and placed in their respective agencies through a memorandum of understanding” (About the AI Science Residency Program)

Evidence and method

The press release of the organization that employs the advisors. It quotes the advisors and agency officials.

Limits

It gives no dates for his past work. The second Cal OES advisor is on Chen CCST AI Science Advisor announcement (web).

Source file: wiki/sources/Chen CCST AI Science Residency launch (web).md, updated 2026-11-06.