Acclaimed UC Berkeley computer science professor Jelani Nelson joins Anthropic

A nationally renowned UC Berkeley computer science professor who also became an ardent critic of recent California math curriculum reforms said Wednesday that he’s taking leave to join Anthropic. 

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Jelani Nelson, who most recently served as chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, announced the news in a post on X. 

“Excited to work with many talented, mission-driven people on the defining technology of our time,” Nelson posted on X.

Nelson did not respond to a request for additional comment on the specifics of his role. Anthropic spokesperson Henry Brill told SFGATE on Wednesday that Nelson joined the company’s pretraining team this week, which focuses on building Claude’s core knowledge and capabilities.  

Nelson received his doctorate in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011 and briefly conducted postdoctoral research at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (now known as the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute), an independent nonprofit based on UC Berkeley’s campus. In 2013, he started teaching computer science at Harvard University. 

During his time at Harvard, an hour-and-a-half-long lecture of his titled “Advanced Algorithms,” posted on YouTube went viral and now has more than 21 million views. The rest of the lecture series, featuring him teaching from a chalkboard and printed notes, maintained viewership in the hundreds of thousands. 

Nelson joined UC Berkeley in 2019 and was elevated to EECS chair last year, though he did not limit his work to the Berkeley campus. In 2022, Nelson was one of more than 1,700 academics who signed an open letter opposing the controversial California Mathematics Framework. 

Approved in 2023, the new curriculum guide recommends eliminating advanced coursework options for middle school students, de-emphasizes calculus in high school work and incorporates social justice teaching into math lessons. Though it was intended to close achievement gaps for minority students, educators and academics worry that it will do the opposite.

“Such a reform would disadvantage K-12 public school students in the United States compared with their international and private-school peers,” the letter reads. “It may lead to a de facto privatization of advanced mathematics K-12 education and disproportionately harm students with fewer resources.”

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In a March 2022 Twitter post, Nelson pointed out that there were zero Black authors of the CMF and criticized one of the authors, Stanford University math professor Joanne Boaler, for charging school districts with large minority student populations “alarmingly lucrative” consulting fees. 

Nelson’s post included a repost of a Lowell High School teacher’s tweet containing an image of an Oxnard School District contract for Boaler’s work, which lists a $5,000-an-hour consulting fee. An original version of that post did contain Boaler’s home address, which the teacher took down and apologized for.

Though the contract is a public record, Boaler accused Nelson of posting private information about her. In an email to Nelson, which he also later posted, Boaler said she had contacted the police about his X posts –– a move Nelson later described as a threat.

“Public advisory: don’t call the cops on black people for no reason,” Nelson wrote. “Black people disagreeing with you on Twitter is not a crime.”

Work at Anthropic or another Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Matthew Brown securely at [email protected] or on Signal at matthewbrownsfgate.11.