About
I am an undergraduate physics student at the University of California, Irvine, applying to PhD programs in experimental high-energy physics for Fall 2027. My research centers on collider physics, dark-matter searches, and machine learning for particle physics — in particular, data-driven methods that extend the reach of precision measurements and searches for new physics.
In summer 2026, I was a SURF fellow at Caltech with Profs. Bertrand Echenard and David Hitlin, where I designed and simulated a muon-beam missing-momentum experiment to search for light dark matter. I currently work with Prof. Christoph Paus at MIT on the projected precision of Higgs-boson measurements at the proposed FCC-ee collider, and with Prof. Daniel Whiteson at UCI I co-developed a time-dependent resonance search for new physics at the LHC, now under review at Physical Review D.
Earlier in my undergraduate career, I worked in observational astronomy with Prof. Asantha Cooray, analyzing Herschel-selected dusty star-forming galaxies with ALMA and Spitzer data, and in nanophotonics with Prof. Howard Lee, fabricating gate-tunable 2D ITO epsilon-near-zero materials. Outside research, I serve as a Learning Assistant for upper-division classical mechanics and electromagnetism, and as webmaster of the Society of Physics Students at UCI.
Education
B.S. in Physics, University of California, Irvine — expected June 2027 · GPA 3.81/4.00
Dean's Honor List, six quarters. Graduate coursework: quantum field theory, quantum mechanics,
group theory, and machine learning & statistics.
Research Interests
High-energy physics (HEP) · AI/ML for HEP · BSM phenomenology · Dark-matter searches
Honors & Awards
- Caltech Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), 2026
- UCI Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Award, two consecutive years (2024, 2025)
- Dean's Honor List, University of California, Irvine — six quarters (2024–2026)
Technical Skills
- HEP simulation & analysis: Geant4, MadGraph5, Pythia8, Delphes, FCCAnalyses, ROOT (PyROOT, RDataFrame), pyhf
- Machine learning: PyTorch, XGBoost, graph neural networks, transformers, weakly supervised anomaly detection (CATHODE)
- Programming & computing: Python, C++, NumPy/Pandas, Slurm-based HPC, Git
- Languages: Chinese (native), English (professional)
Teaching & Leadership
- Learning Assistant, Classical Mechanics and Electromagnetism, UCI Department of Physics and Astronomy (Jan. 2025 – Present) — lead weekly discussion and laboratory sections for upper-division mechanics and electromagnetism.
- Webmaster, Society of Physics Students at UCI, executive board (2026 – 2027) — maintain the chapter website and publish events, resources, and outreach materials.
愿你不仅能欣赏这种文化，也愿意加入这场由人类心智开启的最伟大冒险。 "物理是我的精神归宿"
Research
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Muon-Beam Dark Matter Search
Built, in an eight-week program, the complete simulation and analysis chain for an LDMX-style muon-beam missing-momentum experiment: a full Geant4 model (40-layer LYSO active target with per-crystal readout, electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters) and a 108-muon background campaign on a Slurm cluster. I mapped the rare-background landscape at the one-in-108 level, identifying muon bremsstrahlung with photonuclear interactions and hard muon–nucleus scattering with escaping neutrons as the irreducible processes, and traced every surviving event topology to its physical mechanism. I then designed a 625-node graph neural network over the full detector and benchmarked it against calorimetric vetoes, BDTs, and transformers, establishing a background-free working point at 108 muons with ∼90% signal efficiency under a preregistered model-selection and validation protocol. First author of the resulting manuscript; invited to present the results to the LDMX Collaboration.
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Higgs Precision Measurements at FCC-ee
Conceived and led, as first author, a complete projected measurement of σ(ZH) × B(H → WW*) in the semileptonic qq̄ ℓν qq̄′ final state at √s = 240 GeV (10.8 ab−1, IDEA detector), owning the full chain from event selection to final fit and processing over 109 fully simulated events across 32 signal and background processes in FCCAnalyses. The analysis reaches a sub-percent projected precision on the signal strength (δμ/μ = 0.595%) from a 20-bin profile-likelihood fit in pyhf, hardened with Asimov closure, likelihood scans, cross-validation, and systematic selection scans. I invented a Z-priority jet-pairing algorithm that uses the on-shell Z to resolve the off-shell W* topology, and trained an XGBoost classifier on 26 kinematic observables (five-fold out-of-fold AUC = 0.975).
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Time-Dependent New Physics at the LHC
Co-developed a new resonance-search paradigm that adds event time as an analysis dimension, opening sensitivity to temporally modulated signals that conventional mass-only searches cannot see. We extended CATHODE weakly supervised anomaly detection from one to two dimensions, learning background distributions jointly in invariant-mass and time sidebands for fully data-driven searches. I built the complete simulation-to-limits pipeline (MadGraph5, Pythia8, Delphes, classifier training, sideband-closure diagnostics, expected upper limits) and produced the sensitivity comparisons between mass-only and mass-plus-time strategies that underpin the paper, now under review at Physical Review D.
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High-Redshift Galaxy Evolution
Analyzed Spitzer and ALMA photometry of Herschel-selected ultrared dusty star-forming galaxies and built automated Python/CARTA pipelines for spectral-energy-distribution fitting; co-author on the resulting manuscript.
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Epsilon-Near-Zero Nanophotonics
Fabricated gate-tunable two-dimensional indium tin oxide (ITO) films by liquid-metal printing and characterized their nonlinear optical response; co-author on two SPIE proceedings and a symposium poster.
Publications
Selected Papers
- Time-dependent signals of new physics at the LHC. arXiv:2605.11071 (2026). Under review at Physical Review D (revised manuscript).
Work in Progress
- A Muon Missing-Momentum Experiment. LDMX Collaboration internal note (2026). First author · Caltech SURF final report, posted to the LDMX document database · Draft available on request.
- Measurement of H → WW* in the qq̄ ℓν qq̄′ final state at FCC-ee. (2026). First author · Manuscript complete; to be released as an FCC-ee note · Draft available on request.
- The redshift distribution and physical properties of Herschel-selected ultrared dusty, star-forming galaxies with ALMA Band-3 spectral scans. In preparation.
Other Work
- Euclid Quick Data Release (Q1). AgileLens: A scalable CNN-based pipeline for strong gravitational lens identification. arXiv:2604.06648 (2026).
- Gate-tunable two-dimensional ITO epsilon-near-zero materials fabricated by liquid metal printing. Proc. SPIE PC13579, PC135791B (2025).
- Active and nonlinear epsilon-near-zero photonics. Proc. SPIE PC13892 (2026).
Talks & Posters
- A Muon Missing-Momentum Experiment. Invited talk, LDMX Collaboration meeting, Fall 2026.
- A Muon Missing-Momentum Experiment. Final research talk, Caltech SURF program, California Institute of Technology, August 2026.
- Time-Dependent Signals of New Physics at the LHC. Poster presented at UCI Undergraduate Research Symposium, May 2026.
- Liquid Metal Printed 2D ITO for Nanophotonic Applications. Poster presented at UCI Undergraduate Research Symposium, May 2025.
Notes
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Personal study notes on quantum field theory. This section will expand as I add more reading notes and technical summaries.
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Formula collection and reference notes for electromagnetism.