About
Ursa Major, the great bear
Hello! I'm Christine. I am perpetually worried about AI and trying to find the best things I can do to help make sure it goes right.
I just graduated from UC Berkeley with degrees in Computer Science and Astrophysics. I've built internal LLM-based tooling for Apple, trained DNA prediction LLMs at the Innovative Genomics Institute, and spent three years studying pilot cognition at NASA. Now I am a Second Look Research Fellow at UChicago's XLab, replicating empirical AI safety research.
Writing
Cygnus, the swan
Single Forward Pass
Second Look Research, 2026
α 8ʰ 48ᵐ · δ +17° 48′ · anno MMXXVI
How much can frontier models reason in a single forward pass?
Optimized for Agreement
Proof by Vibes, June 2026
α 5ʰ 33ᵐ · δ +23° 18′ · anno MMXXVI
Sycophancy as a structural product of RLHF's political economy, read through Foucault, Winner, and Yeung.
Thermal Predictors of Open-Loop Focus Drift at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Rubin Observatory technote SOTN-005, July 2026
α 7ʰ 37ᵐ · δ +21° 33′ · anno MMXXVI
Short timescale thermal variable impact on focus
Curiosities
Auriga, the charioteer
Songs, pictures, and other things I love.
A key to the symbols &c.
songs photos videos art movies books & writing
I Can't Get My Head Around You
Billie Marten, 2023
Magnolia
Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999
“I really do have love to give, I just don’t know where to put it.”
The Dispossessed
Ursula K. Le Guin, 1974
Howl’s Moving Castle
Hayao Miyazaki, 2004
“A heart’s a heavy burden.”
You Are the Right One
Sports, 2015
La La Land
Damien Chazelle, 2016
Black Oaks
Mary Oliver, 1997
“Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a little sunshine, a little rain. Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from one boot to another — why don’t you get going? For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees. And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.”
Heart of Gold
Neil Young, 1972
In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar-wai, 2000
“Those vanished years of the past, as if obstructed by an ashen glass window, able to peer, yet unable to grasp.”
Good Will Hunting
Gus Van Sant, 1997
“Sean: Do you think you’re alone? Will: What? Sean: Do you have a soul-mate? Will: Define that. Sean: Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. Will: Yeah. Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Frost, O’Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant… Sean: They’re all dead. Will: Not to me, they’re not. Sean: But you can’t give back to them, Will. Will: Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no… Sean: That’s what I’m saying, Will. You’ll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you’re afraid to take the first step because all you’re seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road.”
Heaven Knows
54 Ultra, 2024
Almost Famous
Cameron Crowe, 2000
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
Ursula K. Le Guin, 1986
