Astera Institute

Astera Institute is a 501(c)(3) private foundation co-founded in 2020 by Jed McCaleb and Seemay Chou with a mission to steer science and technology toward an abundant future. It operates three divisions: Neuro-AI (directed neuroscience and AI research toward safe general intelligence), Radial (life sciences research running high-impact scientific challenges), and Foundation (operational/financial support and the Residency program). Its primary externally-accessible program is the Residency: a 12–18-month, fully funded fellowship based in Emeryville, California, open to innovators working on Neuroscience and AI, AI-enabled Life Sciences, and Open Science. Residents receive a salary of $125,000–$250,000 annually plus a negotiated project budget of up to $1.5M, dedicated workspace, and on-demand access to 24,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs via Voltage Park. Application cycles run approximately twice per year. All outputs are expected to be open and non-proprietary by default, though commercial terms can be negotiated. Astera holds approximately $2.6B in total assets and also conducts strategic for-profit investments and grant-making alongside its in-house research.