Xiaowei Ou

Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia and NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins.

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530 McCormick Rd

Charlottesville, VA 22904

Hello there!

I am Xiaowei Ou, an theoretical and observational astronomer at the University of Virginia. I am a Galaxy Evolution and Cosmology Initiative & NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins Postdoctoral Fellow. I graduated from MIT in 2025, with my thesis work focusing on studying the Galaxy using stellar kinematics and chemistry, co-advised by Professors Lina Necib and Anna Frebel. I study the formation history and dark matter distribution of the Milky Way (MW) using observational data from large public surveys like Gaia, as well as hydrodynamical simulations, bridging the gap between observation and simulation with synthetic surveys. I also use high-resolution stellar spectroscopy to study the heavy element enrichment and evolution in the Galaxy. I am especially excited about the intersection of machine learning and big data in astronomy, and I am currently working on using machine learning to study the Galaxy.