Nathaniel Chen

Projects.

Research

research2026

Foundation models for fusion

Large neural networks trained on heterogeneous tokamak data, specialized to downstream diagnostic and control tasks. APS DPP 2025; ICLR 2026 Workshop DATA-FM.

research2026

OracleFlow

Class-conditional normalizing flows as oracles for exact posteriors. Scaling laws, active learning, and the limits of learning from exact posteriors. arXiv Jan 2026.

research2025

TokEye

Fast signal extraction for fluctuating tokamak time series. Real-time, fluctuation-aware feature pipelines for plasma diagnostics. arXiv Feb 2026.

research2024

ML emission front control at DIII-D

Led a real-time, machine-learning enabled emission front control experiment at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility. APS DPP 2024.

research2022

ORBIT-GPU acceleration

20× speedup on CUDA for the ORBIT-GPU plasma simulator at PPPL.

Websites I maintain

website2025 —

Plasma Control Group

Princeton MAE research group site — publications, projects, experimental campaigns.

website2024 —

ELEDUSA

Corporate site for E-Long Electric Company, LTD.

website2026 —

UQTPi

Uncertainty Quantification Toolbox Pi.

Conferences & communities

conference2023

California Neurotech Conference (CNTC)

Founded the 2023 conference (400+ attendees nationally) via CruX at UCLA — interdisciplinary AI, neuroscience, and cognitive science.

conference2022 — 2023

American Nuclear Society @ UCLA

Founder & president — built the UCLA chapter from scratch.

teaching2021 — 2023

Psi Chi Research Committee, UCLA

Research coordinator — 80+ member literature reviews, year-long research program for 40+ undergrads.

conference2022

NeuroTechX Competition — Best ERP

8-member NTX Competition team — 3rd internationally, Best ERP Category.