👋 Hi, I’m Koutian (吴叩天)
I am a researcher and founder working across AI for geoscience, early-stage company building, and education systems. I am most interested in people who take responsibility for their own trajectory and build from first principles.
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
Personal Notes
I founded and grew USTC Xingyun Poetry Club from scratch to 1,300+ members.
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 co-founded tacite.ai with a $2M+ USD valuation, building the venture from zero business knowledge.
Featured in People’s Daily, Tsinghua News, China Science Daily, and Mango TV. See more in Media Coverage.
Quick Facts
GitHub Commits: 3,000+ per year.
GitHub Stars: 300+.
Writing: 1M+ reads, Startup/Research/VC/Life.
Personal: I love swimming and bouldering.
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.