Hi there! 👋 I'm a first year Astrophysics PhD student at UC Berkeley. Previously, I did my undergrad at the University of Toronto in Applied Mathematics. Broadly, I'm interested in Machine Learning applied to (astro)physics. I'm fascinated both by the world of atoms and bits.

In the past I've written ML models in firmware on FPGA's for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Before that, I developed deep learning algorithms to assist controlling LIGO at Caltech. I have also worked on applying neural simulation based inference to study Dark Matter effects on stellar streams in simulations at the Dunlap Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics. At the same time, I was at UofT's Computer Science Dept looking at building transformers for equation discovery and symbolic regression. And before that, I developed an ensemble learning algorithm for Fast Radio Burst detection deployed on the CHIME radio telescope at the Dunlap Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

My first research project was developing an end-to-end deep learning algorithm to search for signs of advanced life beyond Earth with Breakthrough Listen.

When I'm not busy teaching computers, I love climbing and making art. Come say hi \(\Rightarrow \)Twitter @peterma02 Email: peterxy.ma [at] gmail [dot] com :)