Merlin is a PhD candidate at Oxford University, Blavatnik School of Governance, working on the governance of AI foundation models.  He researches systemic overreliance risks, post-deployment monitoring and which auditing regimes work reliably. His work is supported by the Clarendon Fund of Oxford University Press.

Prior to this, Merlin was a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group on responsible AI and impact measurement, advising corporations, governments and non-profit organisations. Merlin is an economist by background, with published work on causal machine learning.