👋 Hi, I’m Koutian (吴叩天)
I am a researcher and founder working on AI agent for Science.
Quick Facts
I founded and grew USTC Xingyun Poetry Club from scratch to 1,300+ members.
I founded earth-space-ai.org to democratize Earth and space sciences modeling with AI, covering 8 domains from Earth-system models to heliophysics.
I earned the First Honor Graduate distinction at Shenzhen X-Institute, after starting as a research novice.
I achieved the Finalist position for the USTC Guo Moruo Scholarship, the university’s highest honor, after initially ranking last in the college entrance exam.
I returned to Tsinghua University to deliver a lecture to 40+ teachers across the country as the only undergraduate among 40+ scholars, three years after being rejected by the institution.
I published an SCI paper shortly after graduation, overcoming a starting point of minimal technical skills.
I am a contributor to Git, the version control system used by virtually every software project in the world.
I have a hamster named ASI, and I hope he lives to see artificial superintelligence.
Featured in People’s Daily, Tsinghua News, China Science Daily, Port Aransas South Jetty, and Mango TV. See more in Media Coverage. Contributed to the Starting Point One (SP1) documentary.
NEWS
I co-authored a peer-reviewed book chapter on the ethics of generative GeoAI in Geography According to Foundation Models (IOS Press, 2026), writing the section on trust in AI and GeoAI models.
I released two preprints on AI agents for Earth system science: ESM-bench, a 243-task benchmark for whether AI agents understand Earth System Model physics and code, and Noah-Agent, a multi-expert agent framework for Fortran climate models.
Most Interested In
- Young founders with unusual agency
- Scientists who want to build, not just publish
- Educators designing systems, not courses
- People who treat their own life as a serious project
What I Build
- Research tools for land surface and Earth system modeling
- AI-native workflows for writing, coding, and research
- Communities that turn isolated talent into durable networks
- Founder-facing systems for learning, evaluation, and execution
Research Interests
- AI for Land Surface Modeling: explainable AI/ML for Noah-MP
- High Performance Computing: GPU and CPU clusters for geoscience simulations
- Model Optimization: Noah-MP, CTSM, and HRLDAS
Current Work
I am currently working as a Graduate Research Assistant at UT Austin and Project Admin for NCAR/CISL Allocation Project UTAA0012, “Explainable AI for Improving Physics-Based Noah-MP Land Surface Modeling of Plant–Rock–Water Interactions.” This project is funded with significant computational resources including 1,000 GPU hours on NSF NCAR Derecho-GPU and 20,000 CPU core-hours.
Recent Experience
- Graduate Research Assistant - Jackson School of Geosciences, UT Austin (Aug 2025 - Present)
- Project Lead - NSF NCAR (Aug 2025 - Present)
- AI Agent Evaluation Engineer Intern - PineAI (Jul 2025)
- Full-Stack LLM Developer Intern - Beijing ZaiwenAI Technology Co., Ltd. (Jun 2025 - Jul 2025)
- Graduate Teaching Assistant - UT Austin (Aug 2024 - May 2025)
- Visiting Scholar - NSF NCAR (Jul 2023 - Dec 2023)
Education
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Geological and Earth Sciences/Geosciences The University of Texas at Austin (Aug 2024 - May 2029) Focus: Model Optimization of Physics-based Land Surface Models (Noah-MP, CTSM, HRLDAS)
Bachelor of Science - BS (with Honors), Space Physics University of Science and Technology of China (Sep 2020 - Jul 2024) Founding President, USTC Student Xingyun Poetry Club (Currently 1,300+ members)
Contact
I’m always interested in discussing research collaborations, academic opportunities, and AI applications in geoscience. Feel free to reach out through the contact information provided in the sidebar.