Researcher · Builder · Harvard

Cristiana Murgoci

Researcher at the intersection of AI safety, statistics, and physical automation.

Bachelor's in Statistics & CS · Harvard College
Master's in Statistics · Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Cristiana Murgoci

I grew up in Romania competing in physics and mathematics olympiads. I was the first female participant in history to rank top three at the European Physics Olympiad. At Harvard I am studying CS, Statistics, and Economics, with a concurrent MA in Statistics.

Most of my work now lives at the intersection of markets and AI. Right now I am researching what happens when AI agents start acting strategically: negotiating, colluding, learning to exploit the rules they operate under. More broadly, I am drawn to questions at the intersection of fairness and system design: differential privacy, algorithmic fairness, and what it means to build systems that benefit everyone.

Intellectual Contribution Award· Harvard · Cabot House
2026
Honor Medal for Outstanding Results in International Olympiads· Institute of Atomic Physics
2024
Silver Medal · Best Female Contestant· European Physics Olympiad
2022
Finalist, Biomedical Engineering Category· Regeneron ISEF
2022
Honor Medal for Outstanding Results in International Olympiads· Institute of Atomic Physics
2022
"Florea Uliu" Award for Top Results in National Olympiads· Romanian Physics Society
2022
Gold Medal · Third Place · Best Female Contestant· European Physics Olympiad
2021
Gold Medal· Nordic-Baltic Physics Olympiad
2021
Gold Medal· International Zhautykov Olympiad in Physics
2021
Honorable Mention· Asian Physics Olympiad
2021
First Place· Romanian Science and Engineering Fair
2021
Gold Medal · First Place (2021)· Romanian National Physics Olympiad
2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022
Gold Medal· Romanian National Mathematics Olympiad
2019
Member of the Romanian National Team· Junior Balkan Mathematical Olympiad
2017
Sep 2025 – presentAGI Strategy Reading Group

Harvard AI Safety Student Team ↗

Engaging with technical and governance literature on long-range AGI strategy and transformative AI risk.

Sep 2025 – presentStudent Representative

Harvard Statistics Department, Committee on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging

Working to make the Statistics community more equitable and inclusive.

Jun 2025 – Feb 2026Director of Programming

Harvard WECode ↗

Leading programming for the world's largest student-run undergraduate tech conference, organized by undergraduate women at Harvard. Responsible for speaker curation, session design, and the intellectual direction of the conference.

Jan 2023 – May 2024President

Scholars of Finance, Harvard Chapter ↗

Founded and scaled the Harvard chapter: recruited members, built a mentorship program pairing experienced students with newer ones, ran speaker sessions with industry leaders, and served as primary liaison to the national organization.

Jan 2023 – May 2024Academic Coordinator

Harvard Quantum Computing Association ↗

Organized weekly talks with CEOs and researchers in quantum computing. Led a Qiskit reading group and developed peer-led study groups.

Jan – May 2023Academic Chair

Woodbridge International Society

Academic leadership within Harvard's international student society, organizing intellectual programming and fostering cross-cultural exchange.

2023 – 2024Member

Harvard Financial Analysts Club

Women in Computer Science

Harvard Ventures

Prod Days Program

Mathematics & Statistics

Math 55A/BStudies in Algebra & Analysis
STAT 210Graduate Probability
STAT 220Bayesian Inference
STAT 242Time Series
STAT 139Linear Models
STAT 288Deep Statistics: AI and Earth Observations for Sustainable Development
STAT 110Introduction to Probability
STAT 111Statistical Inference

Computer Science

COMPSCI 1210Theoretical Computer Science
COMPSCI 136Economics and Computation
COMPSCI 37Incentives in the Wild
COMPSCI 2881RAI Alignment and Safety
COMPSCI 1261Privacy, Fairness & Validity
COMPSCI 61Systems Programming
ENG-SCI 139Innovation in Science and Engineering

Economics

ECON 10APrinciples of Economics: Microeconomics
ECON 10BPrinciples of Economics: Macroeconomics
ECON 1011AIntermediate Microeconomics: Advanced
ECON 1021Using Markets to Solve Social Problems

Physics

PHYSICS 143AQuantum Mechanics I
PHYSICS 151Mechanics

Social Sciences & Humanities

SOCIOL 1136Work and Culture
WOMGEN 1225Visions of Feminism in the 21st Century
WOMGEN 1410The Politics of Personal Writing
EXPOS 20Expository Writing: Gender & Mental Health
GENED 1033Conflict Resolution in a Divided World

Pre-College

Qubit by QubitIntroduction to Quantum Computing

Computational

PythonC++RPyTorchTensorFlowSQLInspectPandasscikit-learnNext.jsFlaskSupabaseQiskit

Applied

LLM finetuningeconomic modelingmechanism designalgorithmic game theorystatistical inferencemulti-agent systemsdifferential privacyalgorithmic fairnessmarket simulationrisk assessment

Open to research collaborations, conversations about AI safety and automation timelines, and meeting people working on hard problems.

cristiana_murgoci@college.harvard.edu