PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jeff Gore

Jeff Gore is a physicist at MIT whose experiments and theory span microbial ecosystems and the scaling behavior of deep neural networks. He earned a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005 with a Hertz Graduate Fellowship, joined MIT's physics faculty in 2010 after a Pappalardo Fellowship, and published a 2012 Science study on warning signals before yeast populations collapse. In 2020, he received one of the first two Schmidt Science Polymath awards. In 2025, he coauthored "Superposition Yields Robust Neural Scaling" with Yizhou Liu and Ziming Liu, a paper on why language models improve as they grow that was named a NeurIPS 2025 Best Paper Runner-up. He is a physics professor at MIT, where his group studies ecological communities and the physics of neural networks.

Timeline

  1. By 2005

    From Oregon to a Berkeley PhD

    He grows up on a Christmas tree farm in Corvallis, Oregon, and studies at MIT in the late 1990s, where he helps develop an apparatus for studying Bose-Einstein condensates with Wolfgang Ketterle. He earns a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005 with a Hertz Graduate Fellowship, doing single-molecule biophysics research in Carlos Bustamante's laboratory.

  2. 2010

    Joining the MIT physics faculty

    He is a Pappalardo Fellow in MIT's physics department, working in the van Oudenaarden laboratory on cooperation and cheating in yeast, until January 2010, when he becomes an assistant professor there.

  3. 2011

    Sloan and Pew fellowships

    In 2011, he wins a Sloan Research Fellowship as an assistant professor of physics. The Pew Charitable Trusts name him a 2011 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences.

  4. 2012

    Warning signals in yeast collapse

    In 2012, his lab publishes a Science study on diluted brewer's yeast colonies, in which signals in the data predict whether a population thrives or collapses. The paper features a bifurcation diagram that maps the conditions under which the ecosystem stays stable or passes a tipping point.

  5. By 2018

    Tenure in MIT physics

    He earns tenure in MIT's Department of Physics by 2018. His lab explores the roles of cheaters and cooperators in microbial communities, and perturbations that push a stable population toward a tipping point.

  6. 2020

    A Schmidt Science Polymath award

    He receives one of the first two Schmidt Science Polymath awards in 2020. The program gives interdisciplinary researchers the means to expand their research.

  7. 2025

    Superposition and neural scaling

    In 2025, he coauthors "Superposition Yields Robust Neural Scaling" with Yizhou Liu and Ziming Liu. The paper proposes that representation superposition, where language models represent more features than they have dimensions, drives neural scaling laws, and it finds that open-source language models operate in the strong superposition regime. NeurIPS 2025 names it a Best Paper Runner-up.

  8. As of October 2026

    The Gore Lab at MIT

    He is a professor in MIT's Department of Physics and leads the Gore Laboratory. The lab's graduate students study the physics of neural networks, including how neural scaling laws emerge from superposition, alongside the stability of ecological communities.

Career

  1. Since 2010Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyProfessor

Education

  1. 2005University of California, BerkeleyPhD
  2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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

  1. Jeff Gore - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. A Physicist's Approach to Biology Brings Ecological Insights | Quanta Magazine quantamagazine.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Jeff Gore: A physicist exploring population dynamics of microbes | MIT News news.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Physics | MIT Microbiology Program microbiology.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Three faculty win Sloan Research Fellowships | MIT News news.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Two from MIT named 2011 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences | MIT News news.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. TAU professor named one of the first winners of the Schmidt Science Polymath Award aftau.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. [2505.10465] Superposition Yields Robust Neural Scaling arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. NeurIPS 2025 Awards neurips.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Gore Laboratory for Ecological Systems Biology: members gorelab.org. Checked 21 October 2026.