Brendan Fong

CEO & Trustee (UK)

Topos US

Brendan Fong oversees coordination and strategic planning at Topos. He holds a PhD in computer science from Oxford, and undertook postdoctoral studies in systems engineering and mathematics at UPenn and MIT. He is a founding executive editor of the open-access journal Compositionality, and co-authored the textbook An Invitation to Applied Category Theory. Brendan believes technologies of connection and integration are already transforming the world we live in, and is dedicated to ensuring that these transformations benefit society-at-large.

Blog posts

Can the Most Abstract Math Make the World a Better Place? (Quanta)

Topos was recently mentioned in a post in Quanta about applications of category theory. Click through for a link to the full article.

A Category Theory-Inspired BBN

Brendan recently spoke with Eric Gilliam and the interview resulted in a blog post on Eric’s blog.

Applied Category Theory for Engineering Design: A Teaser Video

Prof Gioele Zardini will be teaching a new course on Applied Category Theory for Engineering Design (ACT4ED) this Fall. Here’s a teaser video outline the key challenges in engineering systems design we aim to address with applied category theory.

Launching new collaboration with Chapman University

We’ve launched a collaboration with Chapman University to explore joint research projects and expand our role mentoring and teaching the next generation of technologists working in the public interest. Each year, many people reach out to ask how they might pursue doctoral studies with our…

SCAI — AI for the Global Good

In December 2023, Topos partnered with the Government of Singapore to host the inaugural Singapore Conference on AI for the Global Good (SCAI). An international, cross-sectoral meeting of leaders, SCAI focussed efforts on AI for the global good through the joint writing of 12 foundational yet…

Topos researchers win Best Paper Award at AAAI Fall Symposium 2023

Congratulations to Angeline Aguinaldo, Evan Patterson, and their collaborators James Fairbanks, William Regli, and Jaime Ruiz at the University of Florida and the University of Maryland, College Park for winning Best Paper Award at the 2023 AAAI Fall Symposium on Unifying Representations for Robot…

Welcoming our new Director of Research, Shaowei Lin

We’re delighted to announce that Shaowei Lin has joined Topos as our new Director of Research.

Ask Eugenia Cheng about Category Theory!

We are excited to announce a book club for The Joy of Abstraction, a new book by Eugenia Cheng. The Joy of Abstraction is a wonderful introduction to category theory for anyone who wants to get into the formality of the subject but does not necessarily have the mathematical background to read…

Statement on Topos and the FTX Foundation

Topos is a community and an organisation that cares deeply about the public interest, and works to make a world of better systems for all. As part of this, we believe accountability and transparency are crucial. This post is to create transparency around our now declined funding relationship with…

Who is category theory for?

YouTube is our most powerful outreach tool. Yet how does it shape who we reach out to? And is this in line with the values of our community?

In celebration of Dana Scott

The greatest privilege of working at Topos is being part of a community of incredible people. One of these people is Dana Scott. Dana’s research achievements need little introduction: his ideas have changed our understanding of computing and logic, and have been recognised with numerous awards…

Ethics, Technology, and Embracing the 21st Century

Last week our chair Ilyas Khan hosted Lord Rees for a discussion on Ethics, Technology, and Embracing the 21st Century at the Royal Society. The conversation ranged broadly, from the need for public intellectuals; to the limits of science and what we might never know, and the importance of sincere…

Strategies for ethically oriented pursuit of research and technology

At Topos we’re motivated to build technologies that help us understand the complexity of the systems around us, and to cooperate to improve them, for everyone’s sake. But sometimes good intentions are not quite enough. For example, cooperation requires trust, and we want our technologies to help…

Alejandra Arciniegas, Brendan Fong

All models are wrong, but…

What makes a good mathematical model? For recent work at Topos, it’s when the model helps people cooperate to achieve collective goals. This has a few implications for how we design modelling software.

Join Topos as a senior leader in finance and operations!

Topos is more than just a collection of researchers: we are a community pioneering a new, international, and interdisciplinary tech organisation. We do this in order to help create a future where the systems around us, large and small, allow every member of society to flourish. While our…

So, what’s the plan?

Over the past six months, we’ve conducted interviews across the Topos community, and drafted and re-drafted our 2021–2024 strategic plan, so that we can coordinate effectively around a shared strategy as well as a shared vision. We’d like to share that plan with you all today.

We’re looking for a postdoc!

Topos is hiring! We invite applicants for a one-year postdoc position, from November 2021, to work on a project related to dynamical systems and data using the language of polynomial functors.

Get to know our Summer Research Associates

We’re excited to welcome our 2021 summer research associates to our Berkeley campus! This summer we have Sophie Libkind, Owen Lynch, David Jaz Myers, and Nelson Niu joining our work on connected intelligence and model-based scientific computing. They bring new exciting energy and ideas, and we’re…

Brendan Fong, Sophie Libkind, David Jaz Myers, Owen Lynch, Nelson Niu

Introducing the MathFoldr Project

At Topos we believe knowledge empowers people, and that our community’s expertise should be available to all who seek it out. But simple availability is not enough. True access is more than an open door: it’s clear, legible street signs, elevators, and gently sloping on-ramps. And with modern AI…

Brendan Fong, Valeria de Paiva

Welcome to the Topos Blog

Welcome to the Topos blog! Here you’ll find news and announcements, statements of our visions and projects at Topos, expository articles on topics of interest to the Topos community, and reports of research in progress.