Curriculum Vitae

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Education

}2018 – 2024PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of TorontoNSERC CGS-D Fellow 2020–2023. NSERC CGS-M Fellow 2019–2020.Thesis: Charting Stellar Streams of the Milky WaySupervisors: Jo Bovy, Jeremy Webb
}2014 – 2018B.S. in Mathematical Physics and Astronomy, Case Western Reserve UniversitySumma Cum Laude.Supervisors: Stacy McGaugh

Select Professional Appointments

}2024 – 2027Postdoctoral Associate, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space ResearchBrinson Prize Fellowship (2024–2027).
}2021 –Coordinator & Core Developer, AstropyRole: Member, Core Developer Team; lead maintainer for Cosmology, co-maintainer of Units.2025–2028: Coordination Committee (executive committee).2025–2026: Strategic Planning and Organizing Committee.Funding: Astropy Cycle III — Cosmology and Quantity 2.0.Team awards: 2025 AAS Lancelot M. Berkeley–New York Community Trust Prize, the 2023 IOP Publishing Top Cited Paper Award and the 2022 ADASS Prize for an Outstanding Contribution to Astronomical Software.

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Select Publications

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}2026Potamides: JAX tools for curvature-based inference from stellar streams — S. Wu‡, N. Starkman, J. Nibauer, S. Pearson. Journal of Open Source Software 11, 10712
}2026When Streams Curve Away: a Test of Dark Matter from Extragalactic Stellar Stream Populations — N. Starkman, J. Nibauer, S. Pearson, S. Wu‡, et al.submitted
}2026Euclid Quick Data Release (Q1): The geometry of dark matter halos from extragalactic streams — N. Starkman, J. Nibauer, S. Pearson, S. Wu‡, et al. Astronomy & Astrophysicssubmitted
}2026Reconstructing Galactic Gravitational Potentials from Stellar Kinematics with Physics-Informed Neural Networks — C. Myers†, N. Starkman, L. Necib. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societysubmitted
}2026Galactic Amnesia: The Information Washout of the Milky Way Merger History — L. Necib, D. Folsom, E. Y. Davies, N. Starkman, et al.submitted
}2026Potamides: Mapping Dark Matter Halo Shapes from Stellar Stream Tracks in the Local Universe — S. Wu‡, N. Starkman, S. Pearson, J. Nibauer, et al. The Astrophysical Journalaccepted
}2026phasecurvefit: A High-Performance JAX Framework for Phase-Space Walks with Pluggable Metrics and Strategies — N. Starkman, J. Nibauer. Journal of Open Source SoftwaresubmittedSubmitted to JOSS and pyOpenSci.
}2025Physics-Informed Neural Networks for Modeling Galactic Gravitational Potentials — C. Myers†, N. Starkman, L. Necib. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2025)
}2025StreamSculptor: Hamiltonian Perturbation Theory for Stellar Streams in Flexible Potentials with Differentiable Simulations — J. Nibauer, …, N. Starkman, et al. The Astrophysical Journal 983, 68
}2025unxt: A Python package for unit-aware computing with JAX — N. Starkman, A. M. Price-Whelan, J. Nibauer. Journal of Open Source Software 10, 7771
}2025Stream Members Only: Data-Driven Characterization of Stellar Streams with Mixture Density Networks — N. Starkman, J. Nibauer, J. Bovy, J. Webb, et al. The Astrophysical Journal 980, 253
}2024Angular Correlations of Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum Distortions from Photon Diffusion — N. Starkman, G. Starkman, A. Kosowsky. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 529, 2274
}2023On the fast track: Rapid construction of stellar stream paths — N. Starkman, J. Bovy, J. Webb, D. Calvetti, et al. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 522, 5022
}2022The Astropy Project: Sustaining and Growing a Community-oriented Open-source Project and the Latest Major Release (v5.0) of the Core Package — A. M. Price-Whelan, P. L. Lim, N. Earl, N. Starkman, et al. The Astrophysical Journal 935, 167Co-wrote the Highlighted Feature Development, New and Planned Features, Precision, Accuracy & Reproducibility, and Performance sections.
}2020Straight Lightning as a Signature of Macroscopic Dark Matter — N. Starkman, J. S. Sidhu, H. Winch, G. Starkman. Physical Review D 103, 063024
}2020An extended Pal 5 stream in Gaia DR2 — N. Starkman, J. Bovy, J. Webb. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
}2018A constant characteristic volume density of dark matter haloes from SPARC rotation curve fits — P. Li, F. Lelli, S. S. McGaugh, N. Starkman, et al. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
}2018A new algorithm to quantify maximum discs in galaxies — N. Starkman, F. Lelli, S. S. McGaugh, J. Schombert. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 480, 2292

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Select Fellowships & Awards

}2026Pacific Postdoc ProgramA one-month fellowship at at the University of Washington in Seattle
}2025AAS Lancelot M. Berkeley–New York Community Trust Prize — to the Astropy CollaborationTeam award, as a core developer and Coordination Committee member of Astropy.
}2024Brinson Prize Fellowship“to support early-career astrophysicists and cosmologists who are committed to chasing bold ideas with creative, nimble, and innovative research."
}2023IOP Publishing Top Cited Paper Award, North America — to the Astropy CollaborationTeam award, as an author of the v5.0 paper: top 1% most-cited in Astronomy and Astrophysics.
}2022OSOTF HUDD Award at MasseyOntario Student Opportunity Trust Fund
}2022ADASS Prize for an Outstanding Contribution to Astronomical Software — to the Astropy ProjectTeam award, as a core developer of Astropy.
}2018 – 2024University of Toronto Graduate Fellowship

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Major Grants

}2022Astropy Cycle III Funding Grant — USD 12,000USD 12,000 NASA ROSES and Moore Foundation funding to Astropy Lead: “Cosmology in Astropy"
}2022Astropy Cycle III Funding Grants — USD 8,000USD 8,000 NASA ROSES and Moore Foundation funding to Astropy Lead: “Quantity 2.0: unitful calculations beyond NumPy"

Select Software

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potamides
Relative likelihood of a halo’s y-axis flattening, q₂, from a Potamides tutorial: a flat plateau from about 0.7 to 1.55 that contains the true value, q₂ = 1, falling to zero on either side.

co-lead developer

Constrain gravitational potentials from stellar stream curvature

A JAX package that fits stream tracks with splines and compares their curvature directly to a potential's accelerations. Co-led with Sirui Wu.

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galax
The galax logo, the GalacticDynamics mark: a painted spiral galaxy with a glowing core on a dark disk, circled by a dark ring, between a teal < and a purple > code bracket.

lead developer

Galactic dynamics in JAX

Orbit integration, potentials and stream generation — GPU-accelerated and fully differentiable.

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plum

maintainer

Multiple dispatch in Python

Multiple dispatch for Python, with type-hint-driven method resolution — the dispatch layer under quax and unxt.

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coordinax
The coordinax logo: a ruler crossed with a green arrow on a blue square.

lead developer

Coordinates in JAX

Vectors, frames and transformations — differentiable, and unit-aware via unxt.

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unxt
The unxt logo: a ruler crossed with a green pencil on a blue square.

lead developer

Units in JAX

Unit-aware quantities that survive jit, grad and vmap.

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quax

maintainer

Multiple dispatch in JAX

Custom array-ish types that work with JAX primitives — the substrate the rest of the stack builds on.

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Astropy
The Astropy logo: a white spiral on an orange-to-red oval.

Core developer · Coordination Committee · Strategic Planning

Astronomy in Python

The community core package for astronomy in Python. The collaboration received the 2025 AAS Lancelot M. Berkeley Prize, a 2023 IOP Publishing Top Cited Paper Award and the 2022 ADASS software prize.

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Select Invited Talks

}2026Marche III: Big Bang, Big Stars, Big Computers (Jesi)Energy Structures of Extragalactic Stellar Streams Reveal Dark Matter Halos
}2026EAS 26-S10 (Lausanne)The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2026CWRU Seminar (Cleveland)Computationally Unscrambling EGGS (Extra-Galactic Gravity from Streams)
}2025TevPA (Valencia)The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2025DARK seminar (Copenhagen)The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2025Texas A&M Seminar (Texas)The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2025CCA Software seminar (NYC)unxt, coordinax, and software development in JAX
}2025Princeton Thunch Seminar (Princeton)Euclid: The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2025DARK seminar (Copenhagen)Bayesian models for detecting streams in LSST data
}2024CWRU SeminarStream Members Only: Data-Driven Characterization of Stellar Streams for Inference on the Galactic Potential
}2023CITA SeminarAstropy Cosmology: the Present and the Expanding Future
}2022Oxford Physics ColloquiumStraight Lightning as a Signature of Macroscopic Dark Matter (Invited Colloquium Talk)

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Select Presentations

}2026New Frontiers in Cosmology (Talk)Energy Structures of Extragalactic Stellar Streams Reveal Dark Matter Halos
}2026Near Field Cosmology in the Era of Big Data (Talk)Energy Structures of Extragalactic Stellar Streams Reveal Dark Matter Halos
}2026DARK Seminar (Talk)Energy Structures of Extragalactic Stellar Streams Reveal Dark Matter Halos
}2026York Seminar (Talk)Euclid: The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2025TeVPA (Talk)Euclid: The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2025IAUS 403 (Talk)Euclid: The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2025Cosmology 2025 (Talk)Euclid: The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2025MKI Journal Club (Talk)Euclid: The Geometry of Dark Matter Halos from Extragalactic Streams
}2025DDA #56Extra-Galactic Gravity using Streams (EGGS) from Euclid's Zoo(niverse)
}2025Euclid LU-SWG (Talk)Extra-Galactic Gravity using Streams (EGGS) from Euclid's Zoo(niverse)
}2024ASA: Astrostatistics Interest Group Paper Competition (accepted, not attended)Stream Members Only: Data-Driven Characterization of Stellar Streams
}2024Streams 24: The theory edition (Talk)From JAX to Galax, a new generation of stellar stream tools Using ML to select stellar stream members
}2024Division on Dynamical Astronomy #55 (Talk)Stream Members Only: Data-Driven Characterization of Stellar Streams
}2024Globular Clusters and Their Tidal Tails (Talk)Stream Members Only: Data-Driven Characterization of Stellar Streams
}2023DESC sprint week
}2023Astropy Conference (Talk)An Interoperable Future with Astropy
}2023IAUS379: Dynamical Masses of Local Group Galaxies (Poster)Stellar Stream Track Reconstruction, with Errors
}2023AAS 2023 (Talk)Astropy Tutorials on Units & Constants
}2022CATS-2022Streams22: A workshop for assembling a Community Atlas of Tidal Streams

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Select Conferences

}2026Astropy 2026 ConferenceRole: Coordination Committee and Strategic Planning Committee; moderated online discussion and helped moderate the AI sessions.
}2026Astrophysics and Space Science in Marche III: Big Bang, Big Stars, Big ComputersRole: SOC
}2026Gaia HackathonRole: LOC
}2025Astropy Coordination MeetingRole: SOC
}2025Division of Dynamical Astronomy #56Role: SOC
}2025Gaia HackathonRole: LOC
}2024JAXtronomy WorkshopRole: SOC
}2024Astropy Core Developer Conference
}2024From JAX to GalaxWorkshop at Globular Clusters and Their Tidal Tails
}2023The Future of Astrophysical Data Infrastructure
}2022Astropy Core Developer Conference (Talk)The future of interoperability with Python's Protocols Role: Core developer, maintainer for Astropy Cosmology and Units

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Mentoring

}2026Reem Hamraz Google Summer of Code for AstropyHardening Astropy’s core stability
}2025 – 2026Amir Abdul (Howard)Baryon Modeling in External Galaxies with Stellar StreamsLeadership Alliance National Symposium, July 23–25, 20252025 NSBP-NSHP Joint Annual Conference, November 19–23, 20252026 APS Global Physics Summit, March 14–20, 2026
}2025 – 2026Taisiia Karasova (MIT) with Prof. Lina Necib (MIT)Machine Learning Galaxy intrinsic sizes
}2024 – 2026Charlotte Myers (MIT) with Prof. Lina Necib (MIT)Physics-Informed Neural Networks for Modeling Galactic Gravitational PotentialsNeurIPS Paper
}2023 – 2025Connor McKeigan (Astronomy, UofT) with Prof. Ting Li (UofT)Undergraduate thesis project: “Characterizing the stellar streams of S5”
}2019 – 2022Massey Tutoring ProgramVolunteer math and physics tutor to prospective first-generation college students2019, 2020 and 2022.

Select Teaching

}2019 – 2020Lead Observer: AST101-325, University of TorontoRole: Trained and liaised with TAs and students in all courses using the campus telescope facilities.
}2019 – 2024TA, AST 201: Stars and Galaxies, University of TorontoRole: Designed and ran weekly course tutorial sections, created exam questions, proctored exams, and graded course projects.2019, 2021–2024.
}2018 – 2023TA, AST 101: The Sun and its Neighbours, University of TorontoRole: Designed and ran weekly course tutorial sections, planetarium shows, & observing nights; created exam questions, proctored exams, and graded course projects.2018, 2021–2023.

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Peer Review

Select Professional Service

}2022 – 2023Massey House CommitteeJunior Fellow governance committee at Massey college.
}2019 –Massey Junior FellowUniversity of Toronto's graduate college for those showing exceptional promise and engagement within academia and the world beyond it.
}2019 –MasseyScope Committee MemberOrganizing astronomy outreach with a focus on underprivileged communities
}2019 – 2020Sigma Nu Alumni Advisory BoardRole: Member of the Sustainability and Chapter Operations committees
}2018 –Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA)

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Outreach

}2019 – 2021AstroTours Telescope OrganizerOrganizer for all telescope outreach in Dunlap's public event
}2019 – 2022Massey Telescopes Outreach CoordinatorOrganizing committee member for astronomy outreach and appreciation at Massey College
}2019Planet Party Toronto Volunteer
}2018 – 2020Astronomy on Tap Toronto Volunteer
}2018 – 2019AstroTours Planetarium PresenterRegular planetarium show designer and presenter for Dunlap's AstroTours public outreach
}2018 – 2021AstroTours Toronto Outreach Volunteer

Select Media

}2023The New ScientistFeatured in article on various strategies to detect dark matter, including the method from my paper
}2021Smithsonian Feature ArticleInterviewed for feature article about my paper

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