V. Samuel Pérez-Díaz [how to pronounce]
I am a PhD student at the NYU Courant Institute, where I work with David Fouhey. I am interested in machine learning and computer vision in the sciences, with a focus on astronomy and physics.
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News
Research
DEMNet: Evaluating Solar Differential Emission Measure Inversion with Deep Learning
Poster · CV4Science @ CVPR 2026 · Physics and AI Conference (PAI26) @ Stanford Data Science
Full paper in progress
The Chandra-Gaia Catalog of Counterparts: Resolving ambiguous Gaia matches to X-ray sources in the Chandra Source Catalog using Machine Learning
In review · The Astrophysical Journal
Preprint soon
From Neurons to Neutrons: A Case Study in Interpretability
ICML 2024 · Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR 235
Unsupervised machine learning for the classification of astrophysical X-ray sources
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 528, Issue 3, March 2024, pp. 4852–4871
Teaching
Section Leader · Deep Learning · Alfredo Canziani and Yann LeCun · NYU · Fall 2026
Instructor · Calculus · School of Engineering, Science and Technology · Universidad del Rosario · Spring 2024
Teaching Assistant · Universidad del Rosario · August 2018 – December 2021
Logic, number and set theory (4 semesters) · Differential and Computational Geometry (1 semester) · Theory of Computation (1 semester) · Calculus I and II (3 semesters) · Mathematical Thinking (1 semester)
Background
Previously, I served research positions at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, AstroAI, the NSF AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI), the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Universidad del Rosario.
I hold my B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Universidad del Rosario (Bogotá, Colombia).
Personal
I was born and raised in La Plata, Huila, a small town in the south of Colombia. While cultivating a profound connection with my region, I also spent countless childhood hours captivated by the universe and the power of computation. Additional to my science duties, I enjoy a few other things.
Coffee. You can often find me making a pour over with coffee beans produced by friends and relatives from the Huila region.
Music. I grew up listening to and playing the folkloric genres from the Colombian Andes. For a few years, I studied Classical Guitar at the Conservatorio del Tolima. I enjoy playing guitar and electric bass, and occasionally singing.
Active. I enjoy working out and exploring NYC while road cycling and running.
Mentorship and social impact. Growing up in a small town in Colombia gave me firsthand experience of how inaccessible science careers can feel. I have since mentored students, particularly from Colombia and Latin America, in research and graduate school applications, and I care deeply about widening access to those paths.
In 2021 and 2022, I worked as a Data Analyst at Propel, a social organization focused on helping Latin American nonprofits modernize their digital tools for increased impact. I am a LALA and Youth Ambassadors alumnus.
People
Whatever I have achieved, I owe in large part to people who helped me along the way. As a small act of gratitude, I keep a record here of those who have shaped my academic path, in no particular order.
Alexander Caicedo Dorado, Cecilia Garraffo, David Fouhey, Juliana García-Mejía, Vinay L. Kashyap, Ouail Kitouni, Rafael Martínez-Galarza, Rafael Méndez Romero, Kevin Ortiz Ceballos, Vijay Raghunathan, Jamison Sloan, Sokratis Trifinopoulos, Mike Williams, and many more. This list is incomplete by nature and will always be.
Contact
v.perez.diaz [at] nyu.edu
NYU Computer Science
60 5th Ave, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10011