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Astera funds scientists and engineers to pursue ambitious "focused research organization" (FRO) ideas — projects that fall between traditional academic grants and venture-backed startups. Previous residents have spun out FROs on AI evals, biorisk monitoring, metascience, and large-scale dataset construction. The residency is open-ended in topic but selective in shape: Astera funds people who already have a clear, ambitious research project and need 12–24 months of runway + institutional support to prove it works, then either spin it out as an FRO or wrap it as a research artifact. Honest fit signals: — You already have a specific, defensible project idea — not "I want to explore X." Astera's residency interviews are essentially venture pitches for non-profit research bets. — You can articulate the impact mechanism (what changes if this works, who benefits, why won't existing institutions do it). — You're senior enough to lead the project independently. The residency is not a postdoc-style learning fellowship. What's not a fit: open-ended PhD-style research, junior researchers who need close mentorship, or commercial product ideas (those want a VC, not Astera).