Joel Lehman is a senior research scientist at Uber AI, where he leads efforts into AI safety research. Previously, he was the first employee of Geometric Intelligence (acquired by Uber) and a tenure-track professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, where his research focused on evolutionary computation, neural networks, artificial life, and computational creativity. He was co-inventor of the popular novelty search evolutionary algorithm, and co-wrote a popular science book called "Why Greatness Cannot be Planned," on what AI search algorithms imply for individual and societal accomplishment. He has presented research papers at many conferences, and delivered several keynotes and invited talks for academic workshops and other gatherings.