Seth Baum

Bio

Seth Baum is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, a nonprofit think tank that analyzes and develops solutions for extreme global risks. He lives in New York City.

Dr. Baum’s research agenda seeks to develop practical, small-picture solutions to big-picture, planetary-scale and astronomical-scale problems. To that end, he pursues a highly interdisciplinary approach, characterizing a wide range of threats and opportunities and the interconnections between them. His research contributions include pioneering the application of quantitative risk analysis techniques to the analysis of global catastrophic risks, especially artificial intelligence and nuclear war; championing an integrative, systemic analysis of global catastrophic risk to handle the many connections between different risks; advancing a politically viable strategy for the mitigation of global catastrophic risks by linking risk theory to the social science of decision-maker perspectives; and assorted contributions to moral philosophy, especially AI ethics, environmental ethics, and outer space ethics.

Circa 2026, Baum’s research is engaging with political science literature to explore opportunities to address global catastrophic risk, strengthen democracy, and improve conditions for ordinary citizens amid concerning shifts in political conditions in the United States.

As befits his interdisciplinary research portfolio, Baum’s research has been published in a wide range of journals. A partial list includes Acta Astronautica; AI and Ethics; AI & Society; Contemporary Security Policy; Ecological Economics; Environment, Systems, and Decisions; Environmental Values; Foresight; Futures; Inquiry; Journal of the British Interplanetary Society; Journal of Geography in Higher Education; Journal of Public Health Policy; Natural Hazards; Philosophy & Technology; Risk Analysis; Science and Engineering Ethics; Science and Global Security; Space Policy; Technological Forecasting and Social Change; and Technology in Society.

In his capacity as a senior expert in global catastrophic risk, Baum provides leadership for the broader field of global catastrophic risk and related professional domains. He serves on the Advisory Boards of the University of Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the Tech Governance Project, a nonprofit advancing responsible technology governance in Africa. He also leads the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute’s annual Advising and Collaboration Program; over seven years, the program has supported over 300 students and professionals from around the world who were pursuing careers in global catastrophic risk. Additionally, he serves as an Associate Editor of the journals AI & Society and Science and Engineering Ethics. He is an active member of the Society for Risk Analysis and a former Chair of the SRA Risk, Policy, and Law Specialty Group.

Throughout his career, Baum has been a frequent contributor to public debates about global catastrophic risk. A former columnist for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, his writing has appeared in international media outlets including the BBC, The Guardian, Project Syndicate, and Scientific American, as well as local outlets such as City Limits and The Jersey Journal. His work has also been featured in media outlets such as the Associated Press, Deutsche Welle, Gizmodo, NBC News, Newsweek, Politico, Popular Mechanics, the South China Morning Post, Vice, Vox, and Wired. He has spoken at events hosted by the United Nations, the US National Academies, and the Foreign Ministry of Austria, and was previously a frequent presenter at Nerd Nite, a lighthearted public forum for intellectual discourse.

Baum completed B.S. degrees in Optics and Applied Mathematics from the University of Rochester, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University with a thesis on computational electromagnetics, a Ph.D. in Geography from Pennsylvania State University with a dissertation on climate change economics, and a post-doctoral fellowship with the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions in the Psychology Department at Columbia University. During graduate school, Baum was active in education, including as an NSF GK-12 Fellow and substitute teacher in Boston Public Schools and as an instructor of Penn State’s introductory sustainability course. In Boston, he also contributed extensively to Whats Up Magazine, a street magazine supporting the local homeless population and other in-need individuals.