PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Irene Solaiman

Irene Solaiman is an AI researcher and policy leader whose work connects language-model release, social impact, and evaluation. She earns an international-relations degree at the University of Maryland in 2017 and a Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School in 2019. At OpenAI, she coauthors a staged-release report on GPT-2 and PALMS, a method for adapting GPT-3 behavior; her research also includes the BLOOM model report and frameworks for generative-AI access and evaluation. MIT Technology Review names her a 2023 Innovator Under 35 for her work on GPT-2 release decisions. As of October 2026, she is Chief Policy Officer and SVP of Strategy at Hugging Face.

Timeline

  1. 2017–2019

    Harvard study and election security

    She earns a self-designed B.A. in international relations at the University of Maryland in May 2017 and a Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School in 2019. Her MPP thesis examines how industry can direct privacy in AI. At Harvard's Belfer Center, she publishes a paper on blockchain-based mobile voting in October 2018 and coauthors a 2019 strategy report on counter-information operations.

  2. 2019

    A staged GPT-2 release

    At OpenAI, she coauthors Release Strategies and the Social Impacts of Language Models in 2019, a report on GPT-2 release strategy. It recommends staged release to allow risk and benefit analysis as models grow.

  3. 2021

    Tuning GPT-3 with PALMS

    With Christy Dennison, she coauthors Process for Adapting Language Models to Society (PALMS), an iterative method that fine-tunes GPT-3 on values-targeted datasets. Their paper reports better results than baseline and control models across several metrics for a broad range of GPT-3 sizes.

  4. 2022

    Contributing to BLOOM

    She is among the authors of the technical report on BLOOM, a 176B-parameter open-access multilingual language model designed and built by hundreds of researchers.

  5. 2023

    A gradient for model release

    Her 2023 paper The Gradient of Generative AI Release lays out six access levels, from fully closed to fully open, and the tradeoffs across them. MIT Technology Review names her a 2023 Innovator Under 35 for her work on GPT-2 release decisions.

  6. By 2024

    Global policy at Hugging Face

    By 2024, she leads global policy at Hugging Face after a nearly year-long role as an AI policy manager at Zillow. Her Hugging Face work includes building company AI policy globally and conducting socio-technical research.

  7. 2025

    Access beyond model release

    Her 2025 paper Beyond Release broadens release decisions to system access and organizes access around resourcing, technical usability, and utility. It compares accessibility across four high-performance language models.

  8. As of October 2026

    A shared AI evaluation schema

    In June 2026, she coauthors Every Eval Ever, a community-governed schema and repository for AI evaluation results. As of October 2026, she is Chief Policy Officer and SVP of Strategy at Hugging Face.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Irene Solaiman yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Cyber Attacks irenesolaiman.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Irene Solaiman irenesolaiman.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Community | Assembly at BKC berkmankleinassembly.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Irene Solaiman | The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs belfercenter.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Irene Solaiman | Innovators Under 35 innovatorsunder35.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Release Strategies and the Social Impacts of Language Models arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. Process for Adapting Language Models to Society (PALMS) with Values-Targeted Datasets arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. BLOOM: A 176B-Parameter Open-Access Multilingual Language Model arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  9. The Gradient of Generative AI Release: Methods and Considerations arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  10. Irene Solaiman irenesolaiman.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  11. Women in AI: Irene Solaiman, head of global policy at Hugging Face techcrunch.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  12. Beyond Release: Access Considerations for Generative AI Systems arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  13. Every Eval Ever: A Unifying Schema and Community Repository for AI Evaluation Results arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  14. Accelerating Open Source AI Adoption: the Inria Foundation Launches New Working Group fondation-inria.fr. Checked 19 October 2026.