Tri Nguyen

Machine Learning, Dark Matter, Galaxy Formation

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NSERC CPRA–Dunlap Fellow

Dunlap Institute, University of Toronto

Hello, hello! 👋

I am an NSERC Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA) Fellow and Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, where I explore the nature of Dark Matter and its role in Galaxy Formation and Evolution, especially at the smallest scales. My research involves developing machine learning techniques to analyze cosmological simulations and data from astronomical surveys.

Before moving to Toronto, I was a CIERA Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, and a postdoctoral affiliate of the NSF-Simons SkAI Institute. I graduated with a Ph.D. in Physics (Astrophysics Division) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2024, where I worked with Prof. Lina Necib.

news

Sep 01, 2026 Started as an NSERC CPRA–Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute, University of Toronto! 🇨🇦🔭
Jun 24, 2026 New paper out: hints of a core in the ultra-faint dwarf Boötes I from simulation-based inference arXiv:2606.26218
Dec 08, 2025 New paper on forecasting dark matter subhalo constraints from stellar streams with implicit likelihood inference arXiv:2512.07960
Jul 15, 2025 FLORAH-tree paper on arXiv: emulating dark matter halo merger trees with graph generative models arXiv:2507.10652
Sep 17, 2024 SkAI Institute (link) officially announced!!

selected publications

  1. Dark Matter in Draco and Boötes I: Hints of a Core in an Ultra-Faint Dwarf from Simulation-Based Inference
    Tri Nguyen, Lina Necib, Ting S. Li, and 8 more authors
    arXiv e-prints, Jun 2026
  2. How DREAMS are made: Emulating Satellite Galaxy and Subhalo Populations with Diffusion Models and Point Clouds
    Tri Nguyen, Francisco Villaescusa-Navarro, Siddharth Mishra-Sharma, and 16 more authors
    The Astrophysical Journal, Jan 2026
  3. Uncovering dark matter density profiles in dwarf galaxies with graph neural networks
    Tri Nguyen, Siddharth Mishra-Sharma, Reuel Williams, and 1 more author
    Physics Review D, Feb 2023
  4. FLORAH: a generative model for halo assembly histories
    Tri Nguyen, Chirag Modi, L. Y. Aaron Yung, and 1 more author
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Sep 2024
  5. Synthetic Gaia DR3 Surveys from the FIRE Cosmological Simulations of Milky Way-mass Galaxies
    Tri Nguyen, Xiaowei Ou, Nondh Panithanpaisal, and 4 more authors
    The Astrophysical Journal, May 2024