UVA to Co-Host AI-Powered Astronomy Institute

UVA researchers, including (left to right) Judy Fox, Paul Torrey, Nitya Kallivayalil, Rob Garrod, Ilse Cleeves and Maryam Modjaz. Photo credit: Evan Kutsko, Illustration by Avery Wagner

One of the institute’s project teams, led by UVA assistant professor and computational astrophysicist Paul Torrey, and astronomy professor Nitya Kallivayalil will build AI-enabled tools to explore the nature of Dark Matter. “Competing Dark Matter models can have subtle, but important impacts on galaxy structure,” Torrey said. “AI provides robust approaches for building flexible bridges between Dark Matter theory and our observed Universe. Such techniques will likely be instrumental in our understanding of the nature of Dark Matter.”

The institute will also support the work of additional UVA faculty and graduate researchers, including astrochemists Ilse Cleeves and Robin Garrod, who will be working to develop tools that will help them make complex calculations millions of times faster than current methods allow.

Read in full on UVA’s website.