About Me
I am currently at Princeton University studying ways to advance science through the use
of machine learning with a particular focus on modelling dynamical systems and geometric deep learning. Previously I was at the Australian National University where I performed numerical experiments and helped develop a code to simulate cosmic ray propagation through turbulent
plasma. I have previously worked as a data scientist/computational statistician in fields of
information geometry and biology.
Education
Focussing on machine learning for the natural sciences.
Advisors:
Peter Melchior and
Romain Teyssier
Expected graduation 2026
Masters of Astrophysical Sciences
Thesis: Turbulent diffusion of cosmic rays
Major: Computational astrophysics
Queensland University of Technology
Major: Applied and computational
Queensland University of Technology
Major: Physics
Past lives
I previously worked as an ecologist for Ecotone flora and fauna, where my goal was to help
reduce the deforestation of far north Queenland rainforests (Weipa).
Directly prior to coming back to my academic studies, I was studying modern guitar at the West Australian
Academy for Performing Arts (WAAPA). I still play these days but in a far more limited capacity.
Research
These days I primarily work on developing novel machine learning applications/tools for science. I am intereted in taking advantage of physical symmetries that exist in nature to improve the
iductive biases of neural networks to improve both their predictive, and generalisation power. Previously I have worked in areas of astrophysical fluid dynamics
and cosmic ray diffusion where I have been directly involved in the code develpment of numerous tools. My publication list can be found below and at these links.
Publications
Score-matching neural networks for improved multi-band source separation
ML Sampson, P Melchior, C Ward, S Birmingham
Submitted to Astronomy and Computing
Spotting Hallucinations in Inverse Problems with Data-Driven Priors
ML Sampson, P Melchior
ICML workshop ML4Astro -- Oral presentation
Turbulent diffusion of streaming cosmic rays in compressible, partially ionized plasma
ML Sampson, JR Beattie, MR Krumholz, RM Crocker, C Federrath, A Seta
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society
Cosmic ray interstellar propagation tool using Itô Calculus (criptic): software for simultaneous calculation of cosmic ray transport and observational signatures
MR Krumholz, RM Crocker, ML Sampson
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society
Ion alfvén velocity fluctuations and implications for the diffusion of streaming cosmic rays
JR Beattie, MR Krumholz, C Federrath, ML Sampson, RM Crocker
Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences
The impact of pair-instability mass loss on the binary black hole mass distribution
S Stevenson, ML Sampson, J Powell, A Vigna-Gómez, C Neijssel, D Szécsi, I Mandel
The Astrophysical Journal
Contact
I'm always happy to talk about astrophysics, machine learning and really anything
science related.
matt.sampson@princeton.edu
Address: Peyton Hall
4 Ivy Lane, Princeton
Public profile links:
