Xuejian(Jacob) Shen

Theoretical and Computational Astrophysicist at MIT

About Me

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  • I'm a member of the Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE), the THESAN, and the Lumina collaboration.
  • In 2023, I received Ph.D. in Physics at California Institute of Technology, supervised by Prof. Philip F. Hopkins.
  • In 2018, I received Bachelor's degree in Physics from Peking University.

    • Research

    I am interested in a diverse array of questions regarding our Universe, with a special focus on the formation & evolution of galaxies and the nature of dark matter. Several topics on my radar are:

  • Galaxy formation & evolution in the early universe
  • Numerical simulations for cosmic structure formation on supercomputers
  • The nature of dark matter in the context of galaxy formation
  • Seeding, evolution & demography of supermassive black holes across cosmic time

    • Fly through a massive disky galaxy in the Lumina simulation

    Copyright @Rongrong Liu & the Lumina collaboration

    A multi-scale view of cosmic structures in the Lumina simulation

    A multi-scale view of cosmic structures in the Lumina simulation

    Copyright @Xuejian Shen

    The life of a Milky Way-mass galaxy

    Copyright @Xuejian Shen

    The Milky Way-mass galaxy in the Latte simulation

    Copyright @FIRE collaboration

    Cosmic structure in the THESAN EoR simulations

    Cosmic structure in the THESAN-HR simulations (CDM versus WDM)

    Copyright @Xuejian Shen

    A proto-cluster in the IllustrisTNG simulation

    A proto-cluster in the IllustrisTNG simulation (post-processed with SKIRT)

    Copyright @Xuejian Shen

    Research Highlights

    80+ publications

    20+ first/corresponding-author journal papers, see Publication for details.

    2900+ citations with h-index 29

    First/corresponding-author citations 1100+