Xinyi Chen

I am a CCAPP Fellow at the Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (CCAPP) at the Ohio State University. I am a phenomenologist in cosmology, working at the interface between theory and observation. I develop novel analysis methods to robustly constrain cosmology and primordial physics using ongoing and future LSS surveys and CMB experiments. My research topics broadly cover BAO, growth of structure, primordial non-Gaussianities and primordial features, and cosmological astrophysics, with both LSS-alone and CMB x LSS analyses. Besides theory and algorithm development, I am also heavily involved in data analysis in DESI and advancing the application of machine learning in real data.

Before an unforeseen disruption between grad school and postdoc, I graduated from Yale Physics in 2024, where I was a Future Investigator in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST), working with Prof. Nikhil Padmanabhan on large-scale structure cosmology. Highlights of my PhD work include the development of a high-fidelity initial condition reconstruction algorithm combining perturbative approaches with machine learning, which significantly outperforms traditional algorithms [paper], and the development of a new approach to constraining primordial non-Gaussianity using reconstruction together with optimal statistics [paper]. I went to the University of Michigan for undergrad, where I worked with Prof. August (Gus) Evrard on cluster cosmology and was part of the DES Collaboration. I grew up in the beautiful historical and cultural city of Hangzhou, China.

I enjoy teaching and science outreach and regularly participate in outreach events. The greater community increasingly concerns me, so I also spend time in community service.

Outside of research, I write screenplays that explore the human condition. I like classical music (esp. Rachmaninoff [e.g. here, here, and here] and Tchaikovsky [e.g. here]) and play the piano. I also like to watch tennis tournaments.