Who is Chaya Nayak? Check Education and Career Details of Indian-Origin Joins Open AI as Special Initiatives

Chaya Nayak, a highly successful Indian-origin tech leader whose work has made a significant contribution to the world of AI development globally, is in the news in August 2025 after quitting Meta to work with OpenAI.

She will be working on "Special Initiatives" at OpenAI with a focus on pursuing new ventures at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence with Irina Kofman. Her professional life is notable for impactful inputs towards AI, data for social good, and digital platform transparency.

Education Background

• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee:

Earned summa cum laude Bachelor's degree in Global Studies, with concentrations in Security, Peace Studies, and Spanish.

• University of California, Berkeley:

Earned a Master of Public Policy (MPP) with a focus on Public Policy and Data Science. She was also the Head Graduate Student Instructor in Intermediate Microeconomics during her graduate education.

Early Career

Chaya collaborated with a number of organizations, such as Samasource, the Institute for the Future, The Ergo Group, Quid, and Premise Data Corporation, where she worked on data-driven policy and engineering solutions for customers like the World Bank and Standard Chartered.

Impact at Meta (formerly Facebook)

Chaya joined Facebook to "jumpstart Data for Good," a project leveraging data and AI/ML to address global challenges, from disaster response to public health.

She also constructed products enabling crisis-afflicted communities, such as real-time maps for disaster response and recovery.

Open Research & Transparency (FORT) Team Lead:

Organized and led the Facebook Open Research and Transparency Team (FORT), applying data cleaning, differential privacy, and sophisticated data-sharing frameworks. Her work facilitated responsible scholarly access to platform data for societal research, such as publishing seminal work on the impact of Meta on elections and democracy.

Part of Meta efforts to protect elections, including the 2020 U.S. election, through AI tools and top data sharing relationships to maintain transparency around the world.

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Generative AI Leadership:

Most recently, under the generative AI work, Chaya Nayak has been part of the build of three generations of the Llama language models andMeta AI and has powered innovation at a speed and scale that was unparalleled before.

Aspen Institute First Mover Fellow:

Formed in the foremost international companionate of social intrapreneurs, in her contribution in creating products and practices of far-reaching social influence.

New Role at OpenAI

Chaya Nayak is a new senior executive at OpenAI in the Special Initiatives team, under Irina Kofman. In this case, she will use her experience in AI, data ethics, and technology policy to seek transformational opportunities and innovations at the edge of AI- having a vision to influence the next piece of innovation in technology and society.

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She termed her decision as an ideal follow up step to put everything that she has acquired into practice, and her aim is to create technology that would be of real help to the society.

The story of Chaya Nayak, starting her academic career in the field of global studies and data science before rising to become influential at Meta and newly at OpenAI, tells about her technical genius as well as her dedication to social change. Her ethical AI leadership, data for good and open research will be closely monitored as she enters new frontiers with the Special Initiatives team of OpenAI.

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