Vy Luu
Biography
Vy completed her Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University in 2026, where her research focused on balloon-borne instrumentation for CMB observations and weak gravitational lensing. She worked on the construction, calibration, and launches of SuperBIT and SPIDER, analyzed the image quality and instrumental systematics of SuperBIT’s 2023 science flight, and led the optical design of GigaBIT, the successor to SuperBIT.
As a NPP Fellow at JPL, she will work on PSF modeling and weak-lensing systematics for the Euclid and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope missions. Her research will combine physical instrument modeling, image analysis, and deep learning methods to improve PSF reconstruction, galaxy-shape measurements, and precision cosmology.
Education
- B.Sc., Physics, Columbia University, New York, USA
- Ph.D., Physics, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA
Professional Experience
- NPP Fellow, JPL (2026–present)
Research Interests
- Large Scale Structure
- Cosmic Microwave Background
- Balloon-borne and space telescope-borne instrumentation and image quality
- Astronomical Imaging systematics and calibration
- Physics-based Deep Learning for cosmology
- Multi-probe, multi-wavelength, joint cosmological analysis
Selected Publications
- Saha, S. et al. (2026) Lensing in the Blue III: Weak Lensing Shape-Catalog for 30 Low-Mid redshift Galaxy-Clusters. in preparation
- Shaw, E. C. et al. (2024). In-flight performance of SPIDER's 280 GHz receivers. Proceedings of the SPIE, 13102, 04401.
- McCleary, J. E. et al. (2023). Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the sensitivity of stratospheric balloons to weak gravitational lensing. The Astronomical Journal, 166(3), 134.
- A. Gill et al. (2021). Optical Night Sky Brightness Measurements from the Stratosphere. Scientific Reports Nature
- J. Romualdez et al. (2019). Robust diffraction-limited NIR-to-NUV wide-field imaging from stratospheric balloon-borne platforms – SuperBIT science telescope commissioning flight and performance. AIP Review of Scientific Instruments.
- Romualdez, L. J. et al. (2016). The design and development of a high-resolution visible-to-near-UV telescope for balloon-borne astronomy: SuperBIT. arXiv e-prints, arXiv:1608.02502
- K. Mori et al. (2015). NuSTAR Hard X-Ray Survey of The Galactic Center Region I: Hard X-Ray Morphology and Spectroscopy of the Diffuse Emission. Astrophysical Journals.
- H. McCarrick et al. (2014), Horn-Coupled, Commercially-Fabricated Aluminum Lumped-Element Kinetic Inductance Detectors for Millimeter Wavelengths, Review of Scientific Instruments.