Sawyer is the Operations Director at the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism. Previously, he served as the Executive Director of the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative from 2019 to 2024. Prior to that, Sawyer was a Production Manager at Research Electro Optics (now Excelitas Boulder) and Head of Production at Modular Robotics. He has a B.S. in Physics from Tufts University.