On October 21, 2026, Anthropic announced that Dr. Christopher Stubbs — an experimental physicist who served as the Samuel C. Moncher Professor of Physics and of Astronomy at Harvard University and as Harvard’s Dean of Science from 2018 to 2024 — has joined the Long-Term Benefit Trust.
Stubbs brings decades of experience in observational cosmology and precision measurement. As a member of the High-Z Supernova Search Team in 1998, he helped uncover the accelerating expansion of the universe, work for which the team later received the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. He was also the inaugural project scientist for what is now the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which began a ten-year survey of the southern sky in June 2024; one goal of that survey is to further study the accelerating expansion he helped identify.
According to the announcement, Stubbs’s value to the Trust extends beyond his scientific achievements. He has written about maintaining reproducibility in AI-assisted research, particularly when models may produce differing answers to the same question. He has advised the U.S. government on national security and arms control issues, and is a member of JASON, the independent advisory group of scientists that has counseled the U.S. government on defense and technology since 1960.
Stubbs commented on his appointment: “I am honored to join Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust and to help the company deliver on its public benefit mission. I use AI tools in my research every day and see what they make possible, and as an educator I have confronted some of the hard questions they raise. As a grandfather, I want to help ensure that AI is developed and deployed for the long-term benefit of humanity.”
Anthropic is organized as a Public Benefit Corporation, balancing commercial growth with a defined public benefit purpose. The Long-Term Benefit Trust was established to help sustain that balance over time: it has the authority to appoint a majority of Anthropic’s board, and Trustees advise the board and company leadership on critical decisions, especially those involving AI risks and societal impacts.
Daniela Amodei, Co-founder and President of Anthropic, emphasized Stubbs’s professional qualities in the announcement: “When Chris found evidence that the universe was expanding at a rate no one expected, he and his team followed the data even when it went against the prevailing wisdom of the field. As AI starts to transform how science itself is done, Chris’s intellectual honesty, rigor, and commitment to the truth are the values we want shaping the future of this technology, and I’m grateful he’s bringing his deep expertise to the Trust.”
Neil Buddy Shah, Chair of the Long-Term Benefit Trust, added: “Helping the world build powerful AI safely and making sure it meaningfully improves people’s lives both depend on a deep understanding of science and on leading with integrity. Not only has Chris worked on some of the hardest problems in science, but he has consistently been a high-integrity leader of large, complex, collaborative scientific endeavors across academia, government, and the national laboratories. That will be of great value to the Trust as we support Anthropic in developing AI for the long-term benefit of humanity.”
Stubbs is the Trust’s first physicist and joins other Trustees including Neil Buddy Shah, national security expert Richard Fontaine, and former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke. Trustees serve independently of the company’s management and investors.
Anthropic’s appointment of an experienced scientist with both research and policy experience signals the Trust’s emphasis on scientific rigor and ethical stewardship as it helps oversee the company’s efforts to develop AI in ways intended to benefit humanity over the long term.
