My name is Saulius Šimčikas. I spent the last year on a career break and now I’m looking for new opportunities. Previously, I worked as an animal advocacy researcher at Rethink Priorities for four years. I also did some earning-to-give as a programmer, did some EA community building, and was a research intern at Animal Charity Evaluators. I love meditation and talking about emotions.
Personal feedback form: https://forms.gle/3QBCJ3wsJnjPPWqF6 It can be anonymous. I especially welcome negative feedback.
When I was asked to resign from RP, one of the reasons given was that I wrote the sentence “I don’t think that EAs should fund many WAW researchers since I don’t think that WAW is a very promising cause area” in an email to OpenPhil, after OpenPhil asked for my opinion on a WAW (Wild Animal Welfare) grant. I was told that this is not okay because OpenPhil is one of the main funders of RP’s WAW work. That did not make me feel very independent. Though perhaps that was the only instance in the four years I worked at RP.
Because of this instance, I was also concerned when I saw that RP is doing cause prioritization work because I was afraid that you would hesitate to publish stuff that threatens RP funding, and would more willingly publish stuff that would increase RP funding. I haven’t read any of your cause prio research though, so I can’t comment on whether I saw any of that.
EDIT: I should’ve said that this was not the main reason I was asked to resign and that I had said that I would quit in three months before this happened.