Beth Barnes
Founder and CEO of METR, a research nonprofit that evaluates the autonomous capabilities of frontier AI models
- Founder and CEO, METR (Model Evaluation & Threat Research)12
Beth Barnes is the founder and CEO of METR (Model Evaluation and Threat Research), where Barnes oversees a technical team that designs and runs evaluations of generative AI models. Before METR, Barnes worked with DeepMind's Chief Scientist on scaling laws for forecasting deep learning progress, and at OpenAI on safety targets, scalable oversight techniques and pre-release evaluations of code models for misalignment.12
Career
Before founding METR, Barnes worked with DeepMind's Chief Scientist on scaling laws for forecasting progress in deep learning. At OpenAI, Barnes helped develop safety targets and evaluated scalable oversight techniques for alignment, as well as code models for misalignment before release.1
As founder and CEO of METR, Barnes leads an organization that evaluates frontier AI models to inform the public about their risks and capabilities, with a focus on whether AI systems can autonomously carry out substantial tasks.12
Research and evaluations
Barnes, listed on papers as Elizabeth Barnes, is a co-author of RE-Bench (2024), on evaluating language model agents' AI R&D capabilities against human experts, and a co-author of METR's 2025 study measuring AI ability to complete long software tasks. Barnes also co-authored METR's randomized controlled trial on how early-2025 AI tools affected experienced open-source developers' productivity.3451
Barnes's recent METR publications include external reviews of sections of Anthropic's risk reports in 2026 and work on a per-action monitor for safer evaluations.1
Work
RE-Bench (external site: arxiv.org)Published research
Co-author of RE-Bench (2024), which compares language model agents against human experts on AI research and engineering tasks.3
Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Software Tasks (external site: arxiv.org)Published research
Co-author of METR's 2025 study measuring the length of software tasks that AI agents can complete.4
Career timeline
Nov 2024
Co-authored RE-Bench.3
Mar 2025
Co-authored METR's study measuring AI ability to complete long software tasks.4
Jul 2025
Co-authored METR's randomized controlled trial on early-2025 AI and developer productivity.51
Sep 27, 2026
Co-authored METR's write-up on implementing and evaluating a per-action monitor for safer evaluations.1
Oct 20, 2026
Published METR's external review of a section of Anthropic's August 2026 Risk Report.1
Other documented roles
Roles the sources document but that are not confirmed as current.
Related people
More sourced profiles at the same organization, in the same field, or from the same school.
- Adam GleaveAlso at METR
- Ajeya CotraAlso at METR
- Hjalmar WijkAlso at METR
- Aylin CaliskanSafety and alignment
- Nate RushAlso at METR
- Collin BurnsSafety and alignment
- Abigail SeeAlso at Google DeepMind
- Dan HendrycksEvaluation and benchmarks
- Alex GravesAlso at Google DeepMind
- David StutzAlso at Google DeepMind
- Anca DraganAlso at Google DeepMind
- Diogo AlmeidaEvaluation and benchmarks
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