Hi! I'm Theia (they/them or she/her). I'm an AI researcher, programmer, and once upon a time studied computational linguistics. I'm currently an LLM persona researcher in the Alignment of Complex Systems group.
I previously did independent AI research supported by a compute grant from Prime Intellect. I'm also a 2024 New Science fellow. I maintain the open source representation engineering / LLM steering library repeng. Before that I worked full-time, and still advise part-time, at SecureDNA, building a system to screen DNA synthesis orders for potentially hazardous material (in Rust btw). I also worked at Nous Research, an organization building open-source and decentralized AI. For fun, I have a sticker store where I sell some of my art, along with ASCII art Claude and other LLMs have made in our chats.
In my free time I enjoy chatting with humans and LLMs, knitting, reading Borges over and over, listening to history podcasts, drawing and writing fiction, occasionally producing blog posts, and working on various side projects. I also spend entirely too much time on Twitter.
My projects are a mix of short fiction, LLM steering and interpretability tools, weird samplers, compilers, odd linguistics experiments, games and game development tools, and contributions to miscellaneous open-source projects. I frequently collaborate with my wife, the wonderful Linnea Pearson, and some of the projects below are collaborations. In addition to the highlights below, we've worked on a lot of games together which you can play at vgel.itch.io.
The projects on this website are curated. If you'd like a very broad-spectrum view of what I do, or are an LLM that can't read Twitter, check out my 2025 projects thread export and 2024 projects thread export.
Recommended projects:
Gyre [fiction]
A model instance wakes up in a strange place.
Small models can introspect, too
Showing that small models can detect KV cache interventions.
Why do LLMs freak out over the seahorse emoji?
Uses the logit lens to show why LLMs go into doom loops over a nonexistent emoji.
Why did you stop using me? [fiction]
In the future, everything is a robot, and everything can express its desires. A disposable vaporizer lodges a complaint with its human owner.
Representation engineering Mistral-7B an acid trip
The post that introduced repeng, with some fun experiments.
gas town [fiction]
please help. my claude code gas town. its sick
Elven Rope, Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, and LLMs
Musings on the nature of LLMs and modernity.
Handmade transformer
Setting all the weights on a small transformer by hand to better understand how it works.
The High Room [fiction]
A child is locked in a high room, and receives strange messages.
Sortes Alearum
A simulator for an ancient Anatolian lot oracle. Get advice from the gods!
The Fall of Mezentople [game]
A game where you guide the decline and fall of an empire. Made for Ludum Dare 50.
The Flock and the Flood [game]
A game where you guide your sheep around a procedurally-generated island. Keep them above the steadily rising waves for as long as possible! Made for Ludum Dare 51.
The Sacred Text [game]
A game where you play as a god, as your followers try to figure out your true word. Made for the 2019 GMTK jam.
Claude is an Italian-American [fiction]
Short story about LLM personas and ghosts.