I lead a cross-disciplinary research group, called “AstroML”, at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, with the aim of bringing together expertise in statistics, astrophysics, cosmology and data science. Our research focuses on machine learning, data science, cosmology and Bayesian methods. We are also active in science communication and consulting, and have an interest in ethical aspects of machine learning.

Our group is part of the Theoretical and Scientific Data Science group and PhD programme at SISSA.

Current job opportunities and PhD bursaries

For postdoc openings and PhD fellowship opportunities in my group, please see our Data Science group job opportunities web page. Our PhD bursaries are open to candidates from all countries irrespective of nationality. Women and candidates from under-represented groups are particularly encouraged.

Current members

Junsong Cang
Postdoc

Junsong Cang is a postdoctoral researcher specializing in 21cm cosmology. His research focuses on the theoretical modeling and numerical simulation of the cosmic 21cm signal during the epoch of reionization, as well as inference techniques for analyzing 21cm data. He is currently working on the data analysis of EDGES and SKA experiments.

Junsong got his PhD in 2023 from the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, working on the searches for dark matter and primordial black holes using CMB, 21cm and gravitational wave. In 2021-2022 he was a visiting student at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and he returned there as a postdoctoral researcher in 2024, collaborating with Prof. Andrei Mesinger on 21cm numerical simulation and Bayesian inference analysis of EDGES experimental data.

Andre Joshua Scaffidi
Postdoc

Andre is a postdoctoral researcher primarily focused on machine learning applications to problems in high energy/astroparticle physics with a specific focus on dark matter and beyond the standard model physics.

He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Adelaide in Australia where a majority of his work focused on dark matter phenomenology, before moving to INFN Torino for 2 years where he acquired a more generalized interest in unsupervised learning and generative models before ultimately ending up with the data science group at SISSA in November 2022.  

Sven Poder
Postdoc
Sven is a postdoctoral researcher at SISSA, working at the intersection of astrophysics and machine learning. His research focuses on uncovering the structure of the Milky Way’s dark matter halo by studying how its gravity shapes the motions and distributions of stars. 
 
He obtained his PhD from the National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics in Tallinn, Estonia, where he investigated both the smooth component and the substructure of this halo. During his doctoral work, he developed GPU-accelerated Bayesian inference frameworks alongside supervised and unsupervised deep learning models designed to operate in astronomy’s emerging big data era.
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Rahul Srinivasan
Postdoc

Rahul analyzes challenges in astrophysics using computer simulations and machine learning. Particularly, he is interested in detecting black holes and understanding their progenitor galaxy and stellar environments. To this end, he works on developing rapid gravitational wave detection pipelines and improving simulations of binary black hole formation. 

Since December 2023, he has been a postdoctoral researcher in the SISSA Data Science group. He received his Ph.D. in 2023 from the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France on the topic of understanding the galactic environment of stellar mass binary black holes. In his Master’s degree in Physics (2018), he specialized in exploring geodesics around charged, spinning black holes spacetimes.

Mauro Rigo
PhD student

Mauro is a second-year Ph.D. student. He got his master’s degree in Computational Physics from the University of Trento, where he graduated with a thesis on Variational Monte Carlo methods using Neural Network Quantum States.

He’s interested in Physics, Data Science, and Machine Learning, and in how each field can benefit from sharing the tools and frameworks developed within the others. He likes programming, cooking, drawing, and hiking and he plays the guitar.”

Satvik Mishra
PhD student

Satvik is a new Ph.D. student in the Theoretical and Scientific Data Science group at SISSA. He obtained his M.Sc degree in Physics from RWTH Aachen University, focusing on Astroparticle Physics and Cosmology, and carried out his thesis on Modeling the Epoch of Reionization.

His other interests include photography, cooking, and traveling.

Uros Zivanovic
Master student

Uros is an intern at SISSA and a master’s student enrolled in the Scientific and Data-Intensive Computing program at the University of Trieste. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in artificial intelligence at the Johannes Kepler University Linz.

His current work under the supervision of Roberto Trotta focuses on improving data processing methods for dark matter direct detection experiments using machine learning.

On the side, Uros also likes to investigate automatic note transcription for the piano utilizing computer vision.

Marco Giunta
PhD student

Gianmarco Puleo
PhD student

Gianmarco’s research is primarily focused gravitational wave (GW) parameter estimation using machine learning. He is currently working on simulation based inference methods for the low-latency estimation of massive black hole binaries whose coalescence will be measured by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, a space-based GW detector which is scheduled to be launched in 2034.

In his free time, he loves singing and hiking in the mountains.

Past members

Former postdoctoral researchers:

  • Martin de los Rios (2024-2025)
  • David Prelogovic (2024-2025)
  • Chiara Moretti (2023-2025)
  • Gaby Contardo (2022-2024)
  • Matteo Breschi (2023)
  • Ira Wolfson (2020-2022)
  • Victor Bonjean (2019-20)
  • Alex Geringer-Sameth (2017-20)
  • Eliel Camargo-Molina (2018-2020)
  • Kaisey Mandel (2014)

Former PhD students (graduation year in parenthesis):

  • Mingmeng Geng (2025)
  • Konstantin Karchev (2024)
  • Maximilian Autenrieth (2023)
  • Wahidur Rahman (2023)
  • Sebastian Hoof (2019)
  • James MacKay (2018)
  • Hikmatali Shariff (2017)
  • Charlotte Strege (2014)
  • Marisa March (2011).

Former MSc students (graduation year in parenthesis):

  • U. Zivanovic (2025)
  • S. di Gioia (2022)
  • R. Corti (2021)
  • M. von Wietersheim-Kramsta (2019)
  • H. Bouvier (2017)
  • S. Kobayashi (2017)
  • E. Revsbech (2016)
  • I. Siska (2016)
  • A. Monge Imedio (2016)
  • S. Pak (2015)
  • K. Blanchette (2015)
  • T. Kealy (2009)
  • A. Adam (2009)