Andrew Snyder-Beattie

Andrew leads Coefficient Giving’s Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness program, directing over $200 million in grantmaking while also leading internal research and special projects. Previously, he served as Director of Research at the Future of Humanity Institute (University of Oxford), where he built research programs in biosecurity and systemic risk. Before academia, he worked as a researcher at a personalized medicine startup. He holds a DPhil in Zoology from the University of Oxford and is an alumnus of the Johns Hopkins Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative.

posts

How I think about catastrophic biological risk (part II): risk breakdown by type of prevention

Andrew Snyder-Beattie · 15 May 2026 · 4 min read

How I think about catastrophic biological risk (part I): risk breakdown by type of response

Andrew Snyder-Beattie · 15 May 2026 · 11 min read

This series of posts outlines how I think about the most extreme types of risks. My goal here is to share my worldview in a straightforward and compressed form rather than trying to persuade a skeptical audience, although I do share some of my reasoning.

Linkpost: The Low-tech Plan to Patch Humanity's Greatest Weakness

Andrew Snyder-Beattie · 2 October 2025

The Four Pillars: A Hypothesis for Countering Catastrophic Biological Risk

Andrew Snyder-Beattie · 1 October 2025 · 17 min read

Biological risks are more severe than has been widely appreciated. Here we outline a hypothesis for ‘four pillars’ of biodefense that should work against even the most sophisticated engineered pathogens or ‘unknown unknowns’.