APRIL QIU CHENG.
I recently graduated from MIT, where I studied physics and mathematics. I'm a 2023 Astronaut Scholar and the winner of the 2024 MIT Barrett Prize. In 2024, I attended the 73rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. I'm excited to begin my PhD at Princeton starting fall 2025.
In my free time, I like to write, read, try new cafés, and play video games.
publications
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selected research
- In progress - dark siren cosmology with cross-correlations!
- In preparation - I built the first library to simulate full-sky fast radio bursts (FRBs) by ray tracing through the Illustris-TNG cosmological simulation. I ran a variety of experiments to study systematics in cross-correlations of FRB dispersion measures and foreground galaxies.
- (LIGO T2300368) - As a 2023 LIGO SURF, I studied astrophysically-motivated correlations in population properties of merging black holes. I forecasted 3rd-generation detection capabilities and also studied the biases of searching for a correlation with an imposed phenomelogical model.
- (ApJ 955 127) - Using astrophysically-motivated models to infer the formation origins of binary black holes (Zevin+ 2021), I updated the analysis with GWTC-3, made forecasts for GWTC-4, and explicitly showed the biases that arise from wrong or incomplete prior astrophysical knowledge.
outreach
The road ahead is long, but so is my journey thus far. In high school, I participated in the International Olympiad for Astronomy and Astrophysics and Science Olympiad. Without these outreach programs, I wouldn't be where I am.
Since 2020, I have been heavily involved in writing astronomy tests and developing resources for the Astronomy event of Science Olympiad. A (nearly) comprehensive list of these can be found here. Other outreach involvements are in the works...
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- In progress - dark siren cosmology with cross-correlations!
- In preparation - I built the first library to simulate full-sky fast radio bursts (FRBs) by ray tracing through the Illustris-TNG cosmological simulation. I ran a variety of experiments to study systematics in cross-correlations of FRB dispersion measures and foreground galaxies.
- (LIGO T2300368) - As a 2023 LIGO SURF, I studied astrophysically-motivated correlations in population properties of merging black holes. I forecasted 3rd-generation detection capabilities and also studied the biases of searching for a correlation with an imposed phenomelogical model.
- (ApJ 955 127) - Using astrophysically-motivated models to infer the formation origins of binary black holes (Zevin+ 2021), I updated the analysis with GWTC-3, made forecasts for GWTC-4, and explicitly showed the biases that arise from wrong or incomplete prior astrophysical knowledge.
outreach
The road ahead is long, but so is my journey thus far. In high school, I participated in the International Olympiad for Astronomy and Astrophysics and Science Olympiad. Without these outreach programs, I wouldn't be where I am.
Since 2020, I have been heavily involved in writing astronomy tests and developing resources for the Astronomy event of Science Olympiad. A (nearly) comprehensive list of these can be found here. Other outreach involvements are in the works...
The road ahead is long, but so is my journey thus far. In high school, I participated in the International Olympiad for Astronomy and Astrophysics and Science Olympiad. Without these outreach programs, I wouldn't be where I am.
Since 2020, I have been heavily involved in writing astronomy tests and developing resources for the Astronomy event of Science Olympiad. A (nearly) comprehensive list of these can be found here. Other outreach involvements are in the works...