--- title: "Wes Gurnee — author profile and papers — Elamur Research" description: "Wes Gurnee, Anthropic: 2 papers on Elamur Research (2023–2024), h-index 6 — affiliations, topics, co-authors and who cites them in our library." canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/wes-gurnee/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/wes-gurnee/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [authors](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/) / Wes Gurnee # Wes Gurnee Wes Gurnee has 2 papers in our library, in 2023–2024, most of them on [Language models & pretraining](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/), [Interpretability](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/interpretability/), [Bias, fairness & safety](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/bias-fairness-safety/); often with [Neel Nanda](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/neel-nanda/), [Aaquib Syed](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/aaquib-syed/), [Daniel Paleka](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/daniel-paleka/). 2 papers in our library · 2023–2024 [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/A5036313350) · [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0752-3934) · [**h-index 6**](https://openalex.org/authors/A5036313350) · [21 works](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5036313350) · [213 citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5036313350&sort=cited_by_count:desc) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 [📄 2 works in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/wes-gurnee/#papers) · [🔗 Cited 303 times in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/wes-gurnee/cited-by/) · [1 more in our library without a page yet](#also) · [⭐ Paper Stars ranking: #5398](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/paper-stars/page/54/#star-5398) The profile is the library's match of the name; two people with one name are not always told apart. Elsewhere: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=Wes+Gurnee) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=Wes+Gurnee) · [dblp](https://dblp.org/search?q=Wes+Gurnee) · [ACL Anthology](https://aclanthology.org/search/?q=Wes+Gurnee) ## Affiliations [🎓**Massachusetts Institute of Technology** Cambridge · United States 2021–2026 · 10 papersEducation since 2021 · PhD, Operations Research Center*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/) · [🏢**Anthropic** San Francisco · United States 2026 · 1 paper*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/companies/anthropic/) · [🎓**Cornell University** Ithaca · United States 2016–2020Education 2016–2020 · Bachelor of Science, Computer Science](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/cornell-university/) From the bylines of their papers (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14), ORCID and Wikidata; institutions on papers are matched by machine. ## Fields, topics and concepts Of its works in our library, with the number of works on each. 📚 Shelves 5 The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).[Arts and Humanities · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · [Computer Science · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · [Artificial Intelligence · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · [Language and Linguistics · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · [Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/computer-vision-and-pattern-recognition/) 🧭 Topics 3 Research subjects and languages the work is about.[Interpretability · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/interpretability/) · [Bias, fairness & safety · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/bias-fairness-safety/) · [Language models & pretraining · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/) ## Works by year ### 2020s [**2024** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/wes-gurnee/year/2024/) · [**2023** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/wes-gurnee/year/2023/) ## Papers The most cited first (OpenAlex and our library). 1. **[Refusal in Language Models Is Mediated by a Single Direction](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/arditi-2024-refusal-language-models-mediated-single/)** *(2024 · 196 citations)* Chat LLMs are safety-tuned to decline harmful requests, but how this behavior works inside the model is poorly understood. 2. **[Finding Neurons in a Haystack: Case Studies with Sparse Probing](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/gurnee-2023-finding-neurons-haystack-case-studies/)** *(2023 · 123 citations)* Large language models are hard to inspect. It is unclear how text properties that humans can recognize are stored in individual MLP neurons, especially when a network must encode more features than it has neurons (superposition). The authors introduce sparse probing: linear classifiers that may use at most k neurons… ## All works 3 works of theirs in our library, the most cited first; 2 with a page here, the others link their original until we summarise them. 1. [**Refusal in Language Models Is Mediated by a Single Direction arXiv:2406.11717**Andy Arditi, Oscar Obeso, Aaquib Syed, et al.*2024 · 196 citations*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/arditi-2024-refusal-language-models-mediated-single/) 2. [**Finding Neurons in a Haystack: Case Studies with Sparse Probing arXiv:2305.01610**Wes Gurnee, Neel Nanda, Matthew Pauly, et al.*2023 · 123 citations*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/gurnee-2023-finding-neurons-haystack-case-studies/) 3. **[Training Dynamics of Contextual N-Grams in Language Models ↗](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.00863) arXiv:2311.00863 · no summary yet**Lucia Quirke et al.*2023 · 5 citations* ## Co-authors here 4 co-authors with a page, the most papers together first. - [Neel Nanda](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/neel-nanda/) ×2 - [Aaquib Syed](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/aaquib-syed/) - [Daniel Paleka](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/daniel-paleka/) - [Nina Panickssery](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/nina-panickssery/) ## Cited by Papers of our library cite their works 303 times (of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read); [77 citing papers with a page here →](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/wes-gurnee/cited-by/). Updated 2 November 2026