Jacob Tutt

I am a first year PhD candidate at the Kavli Institute of Cosmology within the Cavdenish Radio Astronomy and Cosmology Group under the supervision of Dr Eloy de Lera Acedo. My research, funded by the Harding Distinguished Scholars Programme, leverages machine learning and high-performance computing to accelerate statistical inference from the next generation of astronomical surveys.

On the cosmology side, my work focuses on the 21 cm line, a powerful tracer of the evolution of cosmic hydrogen in the high-redshift Universe. As a unique probe of the Cosmic Dark Ages, Cosmic Dawn, and the Epoch of Reionisation, its detection will enable us to infer the earliest stages of large-scale structure formation, including the properties of the first galaxies and the nature of dark matter.

From a data-driven perspective, I am intrested in developing analysis pipelines, novel statistical algorithms, and Bayesian machine learning techniques in preparation for upcoming large-scale surveys, most notably the Square Kilometer Array Observatory, which will generate over 700 PB of data annually. The overarching goal of my research is to design methods that efficiently solve inverse problems while scaling with data volume, model complexity, and parameter-space dimensionality. Ultimately, my work aims to enable the full exploitation of these datasets, with applications that extend across astronomy, from broader cosmology to gravitational-wave astrophysics, revolutionising our understanding of the Universe.

Prior to my PhD, I completed the MPhil Data Intensive Science, a programme jointly taught by the Department of Physics, the Institute of Astronomy, and the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. My research centred on Near-Field Cosmology, where I leveraged unsupervised machine-learning methodologies to study the formation and assembly history of the Milky Way, while also developing data pipelines in preparation for the next generation of chemo-dynamical surveys from WEAVE and 4MOST. Alongside this, I undertook projects in cosmological inference from gravitational-wave detections, LoRA adaptations for transformer architectures, and more. I completed my BSc in Physics at Durham University, where I conducted substantial research projects within the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy.

Outside academia, I am passionate about endurance sports. I rowed competitively as part of Durham University’s British Rowing Programme and recently completed the Great Norse Run in Iceland.