PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

A. Feder Cooper

A. Feder Cooper is a computer scientist whose research links machine-learning reliability with privacy, security, and AI policy; they studied computer science and archaeology at Columbia and worked for several years in industry before completing a Cornell PhD focused on distributed training. In 2024, they received an AAAI student-paper honorable mention and shared ICML's Best Paper Award for an attack that recovered a production language model's embedding projection layer through typical API access. Their 2025 work measured language-model memorization and examined copyright, and they presented on machine unlearning and AI policy at NYU. Since July 2026, they are an assistant professor of computer science at Yale, where their research spans reliable and scalable machine learning, privacy, security, and generative-AI evaluation.

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Timeline

  1. 2023

    Cornell PhD and distributed training

    Before Cornell, they work for several years in industry and study computer science and archaeology at Columbia. At Cornell, they are a PhD student in computer science in the Relax ML Lab, advised by Chris De Sa. In 2023, they coauthor “Coordinating Distributed Example Orders for Provably Accelerated Training,” which introduces Coordinated Distributed GraB (CD-GraB) to extend permutation-based example ordering to distributed workloads.

  2. 2024

    An AAAI student-paper mention

    In 2024, “Is My Prediction Arbitrary? The Confounding Effects of Variance in Fair Classification Benchmarks,” coauthored by Cooper, earns an honorable mention for the Best Student Paper in AAAI’s AI for Social Impact track.

  3. June 2024

    A Cornell PhD dissertation

    In June 2024, they submit “Between Randomness and Arbitrariness: Some Lessons for Reliable Machine Learning at Scale” as their PhD dissertation. It sets out criteria for meaningful metrics and methods for measuring machine-learning systems at scale. Their PhD is in computer science from Cornell.

  4. July 2024

    ICML Best Paper Award

    In July 2024, they and their coauthors receive ICML’s Best Paper Award for “Stealing part of a production language model.” The attack recovers a transformer’s embedding projection layer through typical API access.

  5. April 2025

    An NYU policy talk

    On April 3, 2025, they present “Talkin' 'Bout AI Generation: On Machine Unlearning and Lessons for AI Policy” at NYU’s Innovation Policy Colloquium as a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research.

  6. April 2025

    Measuring language-model memorization

    In April 2025, they coauthor the NAACL paper “Measuring memorization in language models via probabilistic extraction.” The paper considers multiple queries to quantify the probability of extracting a target sequence.

  7. 2025

    The Files are in the Computer

    In 2025, they and James Grimmelmann publish “The Files are in the Computer: On Copyright, Memorization, and Generative AI” in the Chicago-Kent Law Review.

  8. Since July 2026

    Assistant professor at Yale

    In July 2026, they join Yale as an assistant professor of computer science. Their research spans reliable and scalable machine learning, privacy, security, generative-AI evaluation, machine-learning systems, and uncertainty estimation.

Career

  1. Since 2026Yale UniversityAssistant professor of computer science
  2. From 2025Microsoft ResearchPostdoctoral researcher

Education

  1. 2024Cornell UniversityPhD
  2. Columbia University

From the biography.

  1. 23% of people shaping AI who left a university for a company later returned to a universityIncludes A. Feder Cooper. We estimate that 468 of the 2,011 people shaping AI who left a university for a company (23%) later returned to a university after a median of 5 years, and 163 of 829 (20%) made the reverse round trip.
  2. 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a companyIncludes A. Feder Cooper. We estimate that 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a company; 29% of moves starting at a university went to a company, and 76% ended the university role.
  3. LinkedIn (1,377) and X (1,193) lead social platforms across 1,935 people shaping AIIncludes A. Feder Cooper. We find social, code or video accounts for 1,935 of the 7,547 people shaping AI (26%), led by LinkedIn (1,377), X (1,193) and GitHub (557).
  4. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Yale University. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of A. Feder Cooper yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. A. Feder Cooper | Cornell Tech DLI dli.tech.cornell.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Coordinating Distributed Example Orders for Provably Accelerated Training arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. AAAI-24 Paper Awards - AAAI aaai.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Florian Tramèr | Publications floriantramer.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Stealing part of a production language model proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Between Randomness and Arbitrariness: Some Lessons for Reliable Machine Learning at Scale arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. A. Feder Cooper | Professor | Yale Engineering engineering.yale.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Innovation Policy Colloquium: A. Feder Cooper | NYU School of Law law.nyu.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Measuring memorization in language models via probabilistic extraction | ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Yale Engineering welcomes four new faculty members | News | Yale Engineering engineering.yale.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.