Biography

Xinlun Cheng is an astronomy PhD student in University of Virginia. He got his bachelor degree in Physics from Tsinghua University and Master of Data Science (MSDS) from University of Data Science. He had previous experience in many fields of astronomy and astrophysics, including AGN, strong gravitational lensing and galactic kinematics. His current interest lies in galactic kinematics. His advisor is Professor Steve Majewski, and he is currently working on exploring asymmetries in the kinematics of the galactic disk with Gaia and APOGEE data, and searching for white dwarf-main sequence (WD-MS) candidates with machine learning. He is also interested in the kinematics and dynamics of Magellanic Clouds.

Xinlun has also received professional data science training during his time at UVA. He is currently doing research on acceleration of quantum physics numerical simulation using physics-aware neural network with Professor Stephen Baek after graduating with MSDS in Spring 2022.

Xinlun is also very enthusiastic about astronomy education. He has experience as an teaching assistance for introductory astronomy courses and undergraduate observation labs for astronomy major, and is very passionate in taking part in public outreach. He usually takes the role of constellation tour guide during outreach events. He is also a long-time stargazer and astrophotographer. Using his expertise in both stargazing and software engineering, he maintains a free version of Stellarium, a planetarium software, on Android. He loves taking and processing startrail and deep-space object images to reveal the beauty of the nightsky to the general public.