How a Former NYU Professor Built a 34-Agent Team With Claude Code

Key Takeaways

• She built 34 agents by first building an agent-builder. Rather than hand-writing each one, she created one meta-agent (using Claude's /skill creator) that then generated the prompts for all 34 — "my wish from a genie is more wishes."
• A research agent emails her a daily/weekly digest. It surfaces new AI developments in her field — political science and AI-for-science — by pulling from Gmail and Google Workspace through MCP connectors she set up.
• Claude Code runs on her own machine as the agent harness. She confirms she chose Claude Code (over Codex), brought it onto her computer, and connected it to tools via MCP — then dictates ~90% of her own text and lets agents draft.
• She reframed AI coding from "cheating" to liberating. Her "soul" is in the data analysis and the architecture, not in hammering out Python syntax — so delegating the code felt like "motorcycling down the coast" instead of biking uphill on a rusty bike.
• Her rule for responsible use: lead with your brain. Be able to explain every decision (why this data, why this analysis), keep critical thinking in the loop, and never lean on AI under deadline pressure — "urgency is poison."