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Toby Tremlett🔹2
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Hey Antony! 
Do you know about High Impact Engineers? Also, welcome to the Forum! I'm here if you have any questions,
Toby (Content Manager for the EA Forum)

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by Toby Tremlett🔹
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Building effective altruismEffective Altruism ForumOpen thread
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Welcome! Use this thread to introduce yourself or ask questions about EA, or the EA Forum. 

Get started on the EA Forum

The "Guide to norms on the Forum" shares more about the kind of discussions we'd like to see on the Forum, and when the moderation team intervenes. For resources that can help you learn about effective altruism, check this list of links. 

1. Introduce yourself

If you'd like, share how you became interested in effective altruism, what causes you work on and prioritize, and other fun facts about yourself, in the comments below (For inspiration, you can see the last open thread here). You can also add this information to your Forum bio to help other Forum users get to know you. 

2. Ask questions (and answer others' questions)

If anything about the Forum, or effective altruism in general, confuses you, ask your questions in the comments below, or message me. You can also answer other people's questions or discuss the answers. (You might be interested in sharing your question as its own post, if it's on a more complicated or substantial topic.) 

Resources like the EA Handbook and the Topics wiki might be helpful for exploring topics related to effective altruism — see more here. 

3. Explore and join the conversation

You can check the resources below, start browsing posts on the Frontpage, or explore the "Best of the EA Forum."

You can also start writing! For exploratory or quick thoughts, consider sharing a "Quick take" (or write a post for longer or more fleshed-out content). 

If you're unsure whether your first post is suitable for the Forum (or whether it should be a question, quick take, etc...) message me and I'll look it over. 

Featured resources (for everyone)

  • How to use the Forum outlines the Forum's rules, answers frequently asked questions, etc.
  • The EA Forum Digest is a weekly email that shares some of the Forum team's favourite Forum posts of the week.
  • The EA Newsletter is a monthly newsletter that compiles EA-related news from around the world and highlights some opportunities to get involved. 

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Dee Tomic13
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Hi EAs, I’m Dee, first-time forum poster but long-time advocate for EA principles since first discovering the movement through Peter Singer’s work. I’ve always had a particular interest in global health and wellbeing, which initially inspired me to complete a medical degree. While I enjoyed my studies, I became somewhat disheartened with the scope of impact I could have as a single doctor in a system largely geared towards treatment rather than prevention of disease. After a career pivot to management consulting for a couple of years, I eventually completed my PhD in epidemiology. I’m now using my research experience and medical knowledge to tackle complex public health problems. 

The more I’ve solidified my own goals to do good, including through my career as well as through giving to effective causes, I’ve sought to further engage with EA content and the community. I look forward to connecting and sharing ideas with you all!

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MichaelDickens4
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Epidemiology! I hadn't really thought about epidemiology as a career but it strikes me as potentially very high impact, especially if you're going into it with an attention to impact. My basic thinking is that the field of health tends to have some of the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of improving people's lives, and epidemiology can have a leveraged impact by benefiting many people simultaneously (which is also why being a doctor is maybe less good—the number of people you can help is much smaller).

If you have thoughts, I am interested in what you think about where are the big problems in epidemiology, or at least where are the big problems that you personally can contribute to. It's not a space I know much about. (You did say the problems are complex which seems true to me so I don't think I am really in a position to understand epidemiology lol.)

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Dee Tomic3
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Very much agree about public health as low-hanging fruit when it comes to impact- hence my career pivot! We often use the term “wicked problems” to describe the public health challenges that are complex, interconnected, and basically refuse to be “solved”. In my view, some of the “wickedest” problems in epidemiology include climate change and health, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), antimicrobial resistance, mental health, pandemic preparedness, and global health equity (among others). 

My own research mostly focuses on NCDs (particularly diabetes) and occupational health epidemiology, while I teach subjects like climate change and public health, as well as health communication (which I also see as particularly important given the rise of health misinformation). I’ve also served on various mental health and global health boards and committees, so I guess you could say I’m trying to contribute to solving as many of these big public health problems as I can! 

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Toby Tremlett🔹2
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That's awesome to hear Dee! I'm the Forum's Content Manager, let me know if you want help finding anything, answering any questions, etc... :)

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Dee Tomic1
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thanks Toby, will do!

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Antony Henao7
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Hi everyone! I'm Antony, and I work at the intersection of Data Engineering, People Development, Organizational Development, and Research/Writing.

A little bit more about me...

Three things I care about:

  • Helping people to build meaningful and impactful careers.
  • Designing organizations that become drivers of social change.
  • Voicing ideas to help people understand how the world works and how they can make a change.

Three things I'm good at:

  • Identifying inefficiencies and designing solutions with a deep understanding of what makes people and organizations thrive.
  • Creating frameworks to systematically approach complex problems.
  • Researching deeply and communicating insights clearly, because I believe solutions start with understanding.

Three things I have experience with:

  • Engineering Management. I scaled up a data engineering department from 12 to 70 engineers for an AI Fund company backed by Andrew Ng, managing a team of 14 direct reports and 70 indirect reports.
  • Mentoring. I've mentored over 50+ engineers over my career, helping them to gain clarity on what they want and how to approach challenges they face.
  • Writing. I've published more than 20+ technical articles on Medium (~500k views), and I'm now currently building The Utopian Engineering Society.

I’d love to connect with people and organizations working at these intersections. While I’ve been following the EA movement for a couple of years, my involvement has been passive. But I’m now actively looking to change that.

If you know anyone, please point me in the right direction or just say hi. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

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Toby Tremlett🔹2
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Hey Antony! 
Do you know about High Impact Engineers? Also, welcome to the Forum! I'm here if you have any questions,
Toby (Content Manager for the EA Forum)

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Antony Henao1
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Hey Toby! Thanks for replying. I didn't know about them. Thanks for pointing me in that direction. Really appreciate it.

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Toby Tremlett🔹2
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No worries! Hope it's useful. Looks as if they could benefit from your expertise :)

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Toby Tremlett🔹2
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Ah - I do however see that they are focused on physical engineers, and your blog is for software engineers. Maybe I was mislead by an ambiguous term

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Toby Tremlett🔹2
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You can find some more related groups here.

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Antony Henao1
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The last link that you shared is also helpful. I didn't know about the groups. 

Thank you for sharing!

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