About Me

Hi! My name is Alex, and I am a 2nd-year physics PhD Student at UC San Diego. I am most interested in fundamental theoretical physics.

Education

• University of California, San Diego: Physics (PhD 2029)
• Duke University: Physics with High Distinction (BS 2024)
• Duke Pratt School of Engineering: Electrical and Computer Engineering (BSE 2024)

Academic Awards

• Duke Physics Graduation with High Distinction: "Highest Honor in Physics. Requires a thesis comparable to papers in peer reviewed journals and unanimous support from thesis committee members."
• Rodney I. McCormick Award: "This award commemorates a former Associate Director of the Duke Free Electron Laser Laboratory, Rod McCormick, and is given in recognition of the research accomplishments of a physics undergraduate student."
• Duke ECE Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Award (2023)

Research

My current research interest is in quantum gravity and cosmology. Previously, I was investigating applications of machine learning for use in the KamLAND-Zen experiment under Professor Aobo Li. In my undergraduate research, I worked under Professor Kate Scholberg at Duke University where we studied the Neutrino Mass Hierarchy Problem.

Peer-Reviewd Conference Proceedings

Migala, A., Ku, E., Li, Z., & Li, A. (2024). Real-time Position Reconstruction for the KamLAND-Zen Experiment using Hardware-AI Co-design. https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.02991. Accepted at the NeurIPS Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences Workshop

Preprints

Schuetz, A.-K., Migala, A., Boesky, A., Poon, A. W. P., Broekgaarden, F. S., & Li, A. (2025). RESOLVE: Rare Event Surrogate Likelihood for Gravitational Wave Paleontology Parameter Estimation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.00757

Talks

American Physical Society Global Summit 2025

6th Joint Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics and the Physical Society of Japan

Posters

2025 Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy Workshop at Georgia Tech

2024 FastML Conference at Purdue University

Teaching Experience

• [UCSD] Electricity and Magnetism Lab (1BL) Lead
• [UCSD] Electricity and Magnetism Lab (1BL)
• [Duke] Fundamentals of Electrical and Computer Engineering Lab (ECE110L)
• [Duke] Modern Physics and Optics Lab (PHYS 164)

Industry Experience

• Charles Schwab: Client Service and Support Apprentice
• Enterprise Holdings: Customer Experience Representative