Betting big on the misfits

We are interested in funding ideas where we can see the additional value of our support as compared to academia and industry. Sometimes this will mean supporting projects in underfunded domains; other times it will mean funding stages of research that are not well addressed by existing funders. By contrast, we are less excited about funding areas of research that are already heavily resourced or that are difficult to scale to significant impact.

We are excited to consider applications across a wide range of domains, from metascience to infectious disease to materials science to robotics to energy. We’re including here a few illustrative examples of the types of projects that might be suitable for a residency, along with counterexamples of projects we would not be interested in, in the hope that they will spark ideas in disparate subject matter areas. (We are not soliciting proposals on these specific topics!)

Scientific research example area: Approaches and products designed to help overcome synthetic biology scaling challenges

• Development of new, promising organismal chasses for biomanufacturing
• Engineering of novel fermentation or growth scaling approaches
• Biological research on extremophiles that could be useful for specific applications like biomanufacturing and drug storage
• Counterexample (less interested): proof-of-concept basic protein design work not tethered to impactful application (already well funded)

Data science example area: Tools to accelerate the creation or use of of large open datasets to underpin ML

• ML-based approaches to assist and accelerate the curation of data and methods from research literature and generalist data repositories to yield data in formats consumable by machine learning models
• FLOSS software workspaces, workflows, and analytic methods that would allow scientists to rapidly bootstrap large, public data sets to create new knowledge (bonus points for playing well with Dockstore and using existing community standard workflow languages)
• Counterexamples (less interested): analyzing a specific data set or building a specific ML model; data science software tied to inherently closed infrastructures  

Metascience example area: Tools to ensure rigor in scientific publishing

• Image analysis software that uses ML to detect manipulated images, potentially to be integrated into automated review processes
• Automated tools to review methods and results in papers to flag potential p-hacking, inappropriate statistical tests, and data inconsistencies
• Counterexample (less interested): paying a team of individuals to catch mistakes or fraud in data (not scalable)

The opportunity for residents includes:

• a salary for one year ($125,000-$250,000, commensurate with experience) to investigate an important problem and potential solutions
• the opportunity to pitch an additional budget for a team and to cover other expenses (e.g. lab, infrastructure, licenses)
• access to substantial compute resources via Voltage Park, a 24,000x H100 cluster
• the opportunity to pitch us on longer-term, larger-scale support following the end of a residency, as well as access to our substantial fundraising networks
• the chance to join a community of exceptionally talented individuals operating in an environment optimized for experimentation, collaboration, and the pursuit of ambitious projects for the benefit of humanity

This program differs substantially from other fellowships and EIRs in giving residents the opportunity to explore foundational research or create public goods that can unlock opportunity areas outside of academia, without an immediate need to translate that research into a profitable product. Provided that everything produced during the course of a residency is open, Astera is unusual in being enthusiastic to support projects at a stage when it is unclear whether they will later turn into nonprofit organizations or for-profit companies, or just become one-off artifacts and goods that exist in the public domain. And we have mechanisms and funding by which we can opt to support all such types of projects after the end of the residency term.

Because our support is intended to promote the creation of public goods for science and technology, it doesn’t come with ordinary strings attached: Astera will not take equity in projects that spin out of the residency in exchange for our financial support (although we may ask for follow-on investment rights). On the flip side, residents will be required to assign to Astera any IP generated during the course of their residency, which Astera will make freely and publicly accessible.

Accountability and performance: Residents will be expected to report out periodically on their progress; however, we encourage residents to structure their own relevant milestones and report-outs to relevant audiences as needed to remain accountable and to get the feedback they need.

Presence in Emeryville, CA: We hope the Astera residency program will serve as a center of gravity for an ecosystem of open science and technology. In order to grow this community, we will require residents to work out of our office in Emeryville, California. We will provide funding and support for relocation and can sponsor H1B cap-exempt visas for international applicants.

If you would have applied for this program but for the location restriction, please fill out this form to register interest — we may opt to run a cohort with a remote option in the future.

Commitment to open science: Residents will be expected to make their final products and key learnings along the way accessible to the public in usable formats that are relevant to the domain. Published deliverables (including null and negative results) should be on accessible platforms; software should be open source; and data should be publicly available and formatted for external use. 

Ideal candidates are high-agency creators with the ability to identify and tackle challenges needed to conduct a novel program of fundamental research or to launch a tool, service, or platform to address the needs of an identifiable user base. We want to identify collaborative candidates who are eager to help improve and scale science beyond traditional academic communities.

We are sector-agnostic, accepting applications across a wide range of scientific disciplines, as long as the proposed project aligns with our mission to steer science and technology toward an abundant future for all via the creation of public goods.

We expect strong applicants to fall along a continuum between:

• Individuals with a compelling history of entrepreneurial and scientific achievement that have identified a problem area and a rough direction to explore, which may be earlier in development
• Individuals with less history of entrepreneurship who have mature proposals for compelling projects 

This means that high-agency applicants with a track record of executing on ambitious projects are welcome to apply with a relatively undeveloped project idea which is understood to be subject to significant change.

Residents will be selected for a combination of personal fit, their project’s potential for impact, and Astera’s ability to support them in ways other funders will not. We expect to invite approximately 1/4 of applicants to an initial interview based on their written applications, which will in most cases be followed by a technical review by domain experts for those who continue to the next round. We may ask for additional written materials at this stage.

The deadline for applications for our Fall cohort (with start dates in October) is May 2.

To Apply

To apply, fill out application here by May 2, 2025.