cv

My Curriculum Vitae as of October 2026

General Information

Name Yang Cheng
Affiliation Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
Email yacheng@mpia.de
Languages Chinese (native), English (IELTS 7.5/9), German (C1)

Education

  • 2025 - 2027
    M.Sc. Physics
    Heidelberg University, Germany
    • Thesis (in progress): A Multi-modal Self-supervised Model on JWST Imaging and Spectroscopic Data for Galaxy Property Inference.
  • 2021 - 2025
    B.Sc. Physics
    Heidelberg University, Germany
    • Thesis: Spatially Resolved Balmer Decrement of Individual Galaxies (grade 1.3; German scale, 1.0 = best).

Research Interests

Science (High-z) galaxy evolution · dust attenuation and star formation
Data Space-based extragalactic surveys · wide-field imaging · (grism) spectroscopy
Methods Emission-line diagnostics · spatially resolved analysis · self-supervised machine learning

Research Experience

  • 2025 - 2027
    Multi-modal self-supervised learning on JWST data
    Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg
    Master's thesis project · Advisors: Dr. Ivelina Momcheva, Dr. Morgan Fouesneau
    • Trained an in-house foundation model on sparse, multi-survey JWST data — NIRISS/NIRCam imaging and low-resolution PRISM spectra — fused via CLIP.
    • Enables population-level inference of galaxy properties (e.g. stellar mass) from single-band photometry and spectroscopy.
  • 2024 - 2025
    Spatially resolved Balmer decrements of individual galaxies
    Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg
    Bachelor thesis · Advisors: Dr. Ivelina Momcheva, Prof. Dr. Hans-Walter Rix
    • Analysed HST/CLEAR and JWST OutThere pure-parallel grism spectroscopy.
    • Developed a PSF-matching technique for grism emission-line maps.
    • Produced the first reff-normalized Balmer decrement profiles at z > 1.
    • Constrained the galaxy-to-galaxy scatter in resolved dust attenuation and its relation to stellar mass and resolved star formation.
  • 2023
    Trapping and cooling Rb atoms with a self-built MOT
    Kirchhoff Institute for Physics, Heidelberg University
    Curriculum extension · Advisor: Prof. Dr. Klaus Reygers
    • Built a 3D magneto-optical trap (MOT) from scratch in a student team, cooling and trapping rubidium atoms close to the Doppler limit.
    • Aligned and fine-tuned the optical setup for the cooling laser beams.
  • 2022
    Optical observations with a 70-cm telescope and data reduction
    State Observatory Heidelberg-Königstuhl
    Independent project · Advisor: Prof. Dr. Jochen Heidt
    • Operated the 70-cm telescope.
    • Implemented a data-reduction pipeline for raw stellar images and performed photometry.

Conferences and Workshops

  • Jul 2026
    Dunlap Institute Summer School
    University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    • Built an echelle solar spectrograph; team awarded 1st prize (faculty vote).
  • Jun 2026
    AstroAI Workshop 2026
    Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA
    • Poster: Multi-modal Model for JWST Imaging and Low-Resolution Spectra.
  • Mar 2026
    Language AI in the Space Sciences
    Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Baltimore, MD, USA
    • Poster and flash talk: Multi-modal Model for JWST Imaging and Low-Resolution Spectra.

Scholarships and Funding

  • 2026
    • ESA Conference Student Sponsorship
  • 2021 - 2025
    • Disney Aspire Scholarship (partial undergraduate funding)

Technical Skills

Programming Python (proficient); C, Mathematica, MATLAB (familiar)
Software PyTorch, NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, Astropy, photutils, grizli, Git, LaTeX, SLURM / HPC clusters

Personal Interests

  • Guitar: playing since 2008 (ABRSM Grade 8).
  • Photography: analogue and digital astrophotography.
  • Diving: PADI Advanced Open Water Diver.
  • Travel: over 20 countries across Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.