Mentoring & training

Mentorship & Supervision

Guiding the next generation of astrostatisticians and data scientists.

78Total mentees
14Current
64Former
Mentees by career stage
Postdocs6
Doctoral12
Master's4
Undergrad55
Secondary school1

Current mentees 14

Postdocs 5

Ronan Kerr

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2024-Present

Reconstructing recent star formation history using Gaia and SDSS-V data of young stars

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Doctoral 6

Leo Watson

Co-Supervisor
Fall 2024-Present

Statistical learning, quantum computing, and MCMC methods for astronomical Bayesian inference

Co-supervised with Radu Craiu (Statistical Sciences)

PhD candidate

DoctoralNSERC CGS-D

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Mairead Heiger

Co-Supervisor
Fall 2022-Present

Galactic chemical evolution using metal-poor stars and dwarf galaxies with hierarchical modeling

Co-supervised with Ting Li (Astronomy & Astrophysics)

PhD candidate

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Undergrad 3

Chuxuan Ai

Co-Supervisor
Fall 2025-Present

Hamiltonian Optimization and Sampling for Deep Learning; Exploring the Chaotic Dynamics of Repelling-Attracting Hamiltonian Monte Carlo Systems

Co-supervised with Ricardo Baptista

Undergraduate student

UndergraduateDSI SUDSSenior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Leo (Hanbang) Wu

Co-Supervisor
Summer 2026

alphaUniverse: The AI Virtual Observatory

Co-supervised with Biprateep Dey, Nolan Koblischke

Undergraduate student

UndergraduateA&A SURP

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Yasir Alsugair

Co-Supervisor
Summer 2026

Hamiltonian Optimization and Sampling for Deep Learning

Co-supervised with Ricardo Baptista

Undergraduate student

UndergraduateKAUSTDSI SUDS

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Former mentees 64

Postdocs 1

Mike Walmsley

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2023-Fall 2025

Building AI foundation models to interpret astronomical images

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Doctoral 6

Master's 4

Philip Loewen

Primary Supervisor
Winter 2026

Understanding Architectural Biases in Neural Time Series Models

Master'sResearch Course

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Isabelle Huang

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2025-Winter 2026

Time Series Forecasting with Deep Markov Models

Master'sResearch Course

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Undergrad 52

Diego Martinez Noriega

Co-Supervisor
Fall 2025-Winter 2026

Estimating Stellar Abundances Across Surveys using Probabilistic Deep Learning

Co-supervised with Ting Li (Astronomy & Astrophysics)

UndergraduateUniversity of WaterlooCo-op Program

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Isabella Rivera

Secondary Supervisor
Winter 2026

Tracing Star Formation Histories and Evolution in Rho Ophiuchi

Co-supervised with Ronan Kerr (Dunlap Institute)

UndergraduateResearch Course

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Mehmet Bükücü

Primary Supervisor
Winter 2026

Galaxy evolution with a single star?

UndergraduateResearch Course

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Mayesha Rahaman

Secondary Supervisor
Fall 2025

Kinematic and Demographic Analysis of the SCYA-89 Stellar Association

Co-supervised with Ronan Kerr (Dunlap Institute)

UndergraduateResearch Course

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Matthew Kustec

Co-Supervisor
Fall 2023-Summer 2025

Exploring Galaxy Assembly Histories Across Cosmological Simulations

Co-supervised with Alicia Savelli (CITA)

UndergraduateSenior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Cissy Kuang

Co-Supervisor
Summer 2024

Exploring Galaxy Evolution in Cosmological Simulations with Machine Learning

Co-supervised with Alicia Savelli (CITA)

UndergraduateA&S ROP

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Weizhi "Luke" Shen

Primary Supervisor
Summer 2024

Galactic Paleontology with Probabilistic Machine Learning

Co-supervised with Ting Li (Astronomy & Astrophysics)

UndergraduateDSI SUDS

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Junbo "Felix" Li

Co-Supervisor
Summer 2024

Identifying Strong Lenses in Euclid Data with Active Learning

Co-supervised with Mike Walmsley (Dunlap Institute)

UndergraduateDoSS SURAUTEA

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Seo Won "Sean" Yi

Co-Supervisor
Summer 2024

Assessing the Robustness of Bayesian Model Comparison in Cosmological Analysis

Co-supervised with Tanveer Karim (Dunlap Institute)

UndergraduateDoSS SURAUTEA

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Semoore Tijani

Co-Supervisor
Summer 2024

Making the next generation of 3D Interstellar Medium Dust Temperature Maps

Co-supervised with Ioana Zelko (CITA)

UndergraduateA&A SURPAurora Borealis Fellow

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Patrice Yee

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2023-Winter 2024

Population Demographics of Exoplanets and their Host Stars

UndergraduateJunior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Jimmy Yang

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2023-Winter 2024

Population Demographics of Exoplanets and their Host Stars

UndergraduateJunior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Xinpeng Xing

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2023-Winter 2024

Population Demographics of Exoplanets and their Host Stars

UndergraduateJunior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Wanshi Liang

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2023-Winter 2024

Population Demographics of Exoplanets and their Host Stars

UndergraduateJunior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Yonatan Eyob

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2023-Winter 2024

Population Demographics of Exoplanets and their Host Stars

UndergraduateJunior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Maximilian Zabrodski

Co-Supervisor
Fall 2023-Winter 2024

Multiple Stellar Populations: Observations, Origins, and Onetime Solutions

Co-supervised with Steffani Grondin (Astronomy & Astrophysics)

UndergraduateJunior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Qianyu "Rita" Fan

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2023-Winter 2024

Latent Parameter Inference with Probabilistic Dimensionality Reduction

UndergraduateSenior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Guiping Zhao

Primary Supervisor
Summer 2023

Deriving Stellar Properties with Spectrophotometric Modelling

UndergraduateDoSS SURA

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Eshal Ahmed

Co-Supervisor
Summer 2023

Exploring Galaxy Assembly Histories Across Cosmological Simulations

Co-supervised with Alicia Savelli (CITA)

UndergraduateA&A SURP

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Ian Chow

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2022-Summer 2023

Probabilistic Dimensionality Reduction Methods for Stellar Chemodynamics

UndergraduateSenior Thesis

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Ishika Bangari

Co-Supervisor
Winter 2023

Exploring Definitions of Milky Way Analogues with Cosmological Simulations

Co-supervised with Alicia Savelli (CITA)

UndergraduateResearch Course

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Feiyu Quan

Co-Supervisor
Summer 2022-Winter 2023

Investigating Warped Disk Galaxies in IllustrisTNG

Co-supervised with Neige Frankel (CITA)

UndergraduateCITA SURF

My career stage then: Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor

Siqi Zheng

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2022

Applications of Bayesian Predictive Model Comparison in Astronomy

Undergraduate

My career stage then: Assistant Professor

Jeff Shen

Co-Supervisor
Winter 2020-Summer 2022

Estimating Stellar Parameters using 220M Gaia DR3 BP/RP Spectra; Disentangling Stellar Age Estimates from Galactic Chemodynamical Evolution; Estimating the Mass of the Milky Way with the H3 Survey

Co-supervised with Neige Frankel (CITA), J. Ted Mackereth (CITA), Gwen Eadie (Astronomy & Astrophysics / Statistical Sciences), Norm Murray (CITA), Dennis Zaritsky (University of Arizona)

UndergraduateResearch CourseSenior Thesis

My career stage then: Postdoctoral Fellow

Mingxuan Teng

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2020-Summer 2022

Detecting and Characterizing Outliers in Machine Learning Applications

Co-supervised with Renée Hložek (Dunlap Institute)

UndergraduateA&A SURPResearch Course

My career stage then: Postdoctoral Fellow

Charlie Hughes

Co-Supervisor
Fall 2021-Winter 2022

Estimating Photometric Metallicities with DECam and S5

Co-supervised with Ting Li (Astronomy & Astrophysics)

UndergraduateSenior Thesis

My career stage then: Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor

Daniel Ding

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2021-Winter 2022

Latent Space Decompositions of APOGEE Spectra

Co-supervised with Jo Bovy (Astronomy & Astrophysics)

UndergraduateSenior Thesis

My career stage then: Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor

Secondary school 1

Liam Pilarski

Primary Supervisor
Fall 2021-Winter 2022

Estimating Galaxy Properties from Images with Probabilistic Deep Learning

Secondary schoolMillburn HS

My career stage then: Postdoctoral Fellow