6S is a research salon and fellowship for top-tier engineers transitioning into scientific roles. We build methods, systems, and benchmarks that make scientific discovery faster, safer, and more reliable.
We aim to raise the floor of human wellâbeing to a nextâcentury baseline by accelerating scientific capability with modern AI, especially large language models. We pursue open research, reproducible artifacts, and practical systems that compound across the scientific stack.
Evaluation, drift detection, unlearning, data pipelines, and scalable serving.
Agentic workflows, labâgrade reasoning, and domainâgrounded modeling.
Open, fair, and durable tests that reflect real scientific tasks.
Transparent reporting, bias/robustness audits, and reproducibility standards.
Designed for elite engineers ready to transition into scientific research. Expect weekly paper/prototype cadence, strong mentorship, and public artifacts. Funding status: early stage; current cohorts may be unpaid while we build partnerships and donors.
Fullâtime, 6â12 months. Coâmentored projects targeting papers, benchmarks, and openâsource releases.
12 months at ~20+ hrs/week. Ideal for engineers exploring the research path while employed or transitioning.
Life today is incomparably better than in centuries pastâthanks to technology rooted in basic science. Few of us would choose a world without modern medicine, climate control, or global communication. Our premise is simple: when science advances, daily life follows.
No amount of willpower or wealth can overcome missing scientific capability. History is full of examplesâfrom quests for longevity to cures that society simply wasnât yet able to make. Our work acknowledges this: to raise the ceiling of whatâs possible, we must push the frontier of methods and tools.
Large language models can accelerate science by scaffolding reasoning, automating literature synthesis, orchestrating experiments, generating code and analyses, and stressâtesting hypotheses. We build systems and evaluations that make these capabilities reliable, safe, and truly helpful to working scientists.
6S follows the spirit of early open AI research organizations: open by default, researchâfirst, safetyâconscious. We focus on LLM systems, AI for Science, and foundational infrastructure that improves the reliability and utility of modern models in scientific workflows.
Robert Yang (Stanford BS with Distinction, Terman Scholar; MS in Computer Science, AI focus) founded 6S after personally transitioning from engineering to research. His interests span data drift, AI for science, ML systems, foundation models, and unlearning. Previously, he built LLM model serving and infrastructure at scale (exâAWS).
Interested in a fellowship or in partnering as a mentor, donor, or sponsor? Send a short note with your background and goals.
Prefer email? Reach Robert directly:
When funding solidifies, we may introduce paid cohorts. Until then, fellowships operate as mentorship and open research collaborations.