After KAUST Academy
As of October 2026, Nawaf is studying at Yanbu Industrial College and serves as president of its AI club. Nawaf completed all stages of the KAUST Academy AI program and presented dark matter research done as a research assistant at the University of Toronto.
Summer project
Artificial Intelligence Specialization · Cohort 2026
Inferring Dark Matter Density Profiles from 5D Stellar Kinematics using Simulation-Based Inference
Dark matter cannot be observed directly, so its distribution is studied through its gravitational effects on visible matter. This project uses synthetic dwarf galaxies and combines graph neural networks with Neural Posterior Estimation to infer the posterior distribution of dark matter density-profile parameters from five-dimensional stellar observations: two sky-position coordinates, line-of-sight velocity, and two proper-motion components. The graph neural network will summarize the stellar data of the galaxy, while a conditional normalizing flow will model the posterior distribution and generate posterior samples. The goal is to reduce the information loss associated with classical dynamical methods and extend previous approaches by including the transverse motions of stars across the sky.
With KAUST Academy
- Cohort 2026
Artificial Intelligence Specialization
University of Toronto · Artificial Intelligence Summer Program
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