Pear VC Fellows Application 2026–27 — Brando Miranda

Ready to paste into the Airtable form. Three fields need your input before submitting — see ⚠️ below. Everything else is drafted and ready.

⚠️ NEEDS YOUR INPUT (only you can answer these truthfully):

Video — record the 2–3 min script at the bottom, upload to YouTube (Public/Unlisted) or Google Drive (link-sharing on), paste the link.

Best founder you know who raised < $250k (+ LinkedIn) — pick a real person from your network (see suggestions at bottom).

Referral — name the Pear person/Fellow if one nudged you (your Pear AI Researchers Circle contact is the natural cite).

Form fields

Full Name Brando Miranda

Personal Email (not .edu) brandojazz@gmail.com

Academic Email (.edu) brando9@stanford.edu

LinkedIn URL https://www.linkedin.com/in/brando-miranda-40821046/

Campus Stanford University

Campus (if other) — (leave blank)

What degree are you currently working towards? PhD (select “PhD” / “Doctorate”; if a text field: “PhD in Computer Science”)

Degree (if other) PhD in Computer Science — Stanford University (expected 2026), advised by Prof. Sanmi Koyejo (STAIR Lab / Stanford AI Lab)

Select your undergraduate major Computer Science (BS in Computer Science & Engineering, MIT; minors in Mathematics and Music)

If other (major) Computer Science & Engineering (MIT), minors in Mathematics & Music

Graduation Year 2026 (PhD, expected) — note: change to 2027 if you’d rather signal availability through the full 2026–27 fellowship year.

What industry do you have the most expertise in? Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (foundation models & LLMs, AI for formal math & verification, contamination-resistant AI evaluation)

What industry do you have the second most expertise in? Developer Tools / AI Infrastructure (AI coding agents, formal verification, and evaluation infrastructure for AI-generated code)

Industry (if other) AI for formal mathematics & verified software (developer tools + AI infrastructure)

What communities on campus are you a part of or plan to be a part of? My research home is the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL), in Sanmi Koyejo’s STAIR group, and I’m active in Stanford HAI’s foundation-model community. I’m the co-founder and president of Stanford AI for Lean, a club I built around AI for formal mathematics — we publish open Learning-Lean-4 tutorials and open-source code. I’m an EDGE Scholar (Stanford’s community for first-generation / low-income PhDs) and part of the Latinx/Hispanic graduate community. Outside research I founded Stanford Bachata Sensual & Brazilian Zouk, an official student org I grew into an 83-video YouTube lesson library with 25K+ views and a weekly in-person community across the Rains graduate neighborhood. As a Fellow I plan to go deeper into Stanford’s AI-founder ecosystem (HAI, SAIL spinouts, and the AI-for-Lean builder crowd).

Which community or program on campus has the best founders? Stanford’s AI PhD community — SAIL and HAI. This cohort sits closest to the frontier of the current AI wave and repeatedly spins deep-tech companies out of lab research; these founders can build the model, not just the pitch. More specifically, the small, unusually technical crowd around Stanford AI for Lean and the broader AI-for-math / verification community skews toward mission-driven builders tackling hard, verifiable problems — exactly the kind of underrated technical founder who’s early and raising sub-seed today. That’s the network I can open for Pear.

Who is the best founder you know that has raised less than $250k? (+ LinkedIn) ⚠️ [YOUR INPUT — name a real person + paste their LinkedIn.] Candidates to consider from your network: a labmate/collaborator who’s quietly started a company, someone from Stanford AI for Lean, or a peer from the Pear AI Researcher Grant cohort. Pick the one whose company you’d genuinely bet on and can speak to specifically.

Submit a 2–3 minute video on why you want to be a Pear Fellow ⚠️ [Record the script below → upload to Public/Unlisted YouTube or shareable Google Drive → paste link here.]

How did you hear about the Fellows program? Through Pear directly — I was invited to the Pear AI Researchers Circle in July 2025 after reaching the final round (R3) of the Pear AI Researcher Grant. Getting to know Pear’s AI-research network is what made me want to go deeper as a Fellow.

Did someone refer you and if so, who? ⚠️ [If a Pear team member or current/past Fellow encouraged you to apply, name them — your Pear AI Researchers Circle contact is the natural person to cite. If not, leave blank or write: “No direct referral — I’ve engaged with Pear through the AI Researcher Grant and Researchers Circle.”]

🎥 Video script (~2.5 min, ~420 words — read naturally, warm and direct)

Hi, I’m Brando Miranda. I’m a Computer Science PhD at Stanford in Sanmi Koyejo’s lab, and I work at the frontier of AI for mathematics — teaching AI systems to write formally verified code and proofs that are checked by machine, not just trusted.

I want to be a Pear Fellow for three reasons.

First, I already live where the best AI founders are forming. My research puts me in daily contact with the people building the next wave of AI companies — at the Stanford AI Lab, at MIT where I did my undergrad and master’s, and across the AI-for-math and evaluation communities. When a labmate quietly starts a company, I usually hear about it before there’s a term sheet. Pear wins by sourcing great founders early, and that’s exactly the network I can open.

Second, I can actually evaluate the technical bets. I’ve published award-winning work — our paper on the emergent abilities of large language models won a NeurIPS Outstanding Paper Award, top 0.4% of submissions, and was cited in the White House Economic Report of the President. My whole research life is separating real capability from hype in AI. That’s the exact judgment you need to tell a defensible AI company from a nice demo.

Third, I’m a builder, not just a researcher. I founded and run Stanford AI for Lean, publishing open tutorials and code for a global community. And I started a dance organization from nothing and grew it into an 83-video library with over 25,000 views and a weekly in-person community. I know what it takes to start something from zero, find your first users, and keep them — and I want to help founders do the same.

What I want from the fellowship is to learn the craft of venture from Pear’s team, build a reputation as someone founders trust for honest technical judgment, and extend my network beyond research into the people backing and building companies. I’m early in my own path — I can see myself starting a company one day — and there’s no better way to learn what makes companies work than to help discover and support them alongside Pear.

I’d bring frontier technical depth, a strong and specific network in AI, and the hustle of someone who’s built real communities from scratch. I’d be honored to do that work as a Pear Fellow. Thank you.

Quick tips

Video: film in landscape, good light, quiet room; a single confident take beats an over-produced one. YouTube “Unlisted” is the easiest shareable link.
Grad year: if you’ll have defended before the fellowship year, consider listing 2027 or adding “expected” so eligibility is unambiguous.
Founder question: specificity wins — one sentence on what they’re building and why you’d back them is better than a big name.