He mostly studies computational complexity. Quantum computing is a part of that, but there's other subfields. Though the kind of AI safety described in this post seems more like an extremely fancy version of program verification, so out of CS bloggers you'd expect John Regehr to get into it.

>the kind of AI safety described in this post seems more like an extremely fancy version of program verification

It kind of is. The field of AI safety is actually much more advanced than most people realise, with actual, real techniques to e.g. make sure neural networks are aligned with certain goals even under fluctuating parameters. Granted, we're still far from soothing an AGI before it can do something bad, but the tools we have today are already pushing in that direction (assuming neural networks are the right way to AGI of course).

If you're interested in verification you should probably talk to people who actually work on verification, for example, literally anyone from our research community: https://www.floc2022.org/

This kind of verification is what the other commenter was referring to, but it is very foundational and disconnected from current day-to-day ML aspects. If you're interested in practical, empirical AI safety research, see here for example: http://aisafety.stanford.edu/

They also explain the area of overlap with formal verification in their white paper.

do you have any papers or keywords you recommend?

Maybe he just wants to use his sabbatical to try something different? Someone in his position doesn't have to remain laser focus on their own field.