Ibrahim Elsharkawy

Physicist &
ML Researcher

PhD candidate studying generative models for physical systems and building foundation models for science.

University of Toronto, Vector Institute, Berkeley Lab (NERSC)

PhD advised by Yoni Kahn, committee: David Curtin & Chris Maddison
NERSC advised by Wahid Bhimji, Benjamin Nachman, Aishik Ghosh

Physics for AI, AI for Physics.

Ibrahim Elsharkawy
News
  • Jun 2026NERSC AI4Sci proposal accepted: 7,000 GPU node-hours awarded
  • Jun 2026FAIR Universe Weak Lensing Challenge accepted to NeurIPS 2026
  • Jun 2026Released Pre-Training for Simulation-Based Science · talks at Vector & Stanford
  • Apr 2026Awarded the NSERC Doctoral Scholarship (CGRS-D)
  • Feb 2026Guest lecturer, “The Physics of Machine Learning” at U of T
  • Jan 2026Released the OmniMol & OmniCosmos preprints
  • Sep 2025First-place prize (ex aequo) at CERN · HiggsML Uncertainty Challenge, NeurIPS 2025
  • May 2025Released Contrastive Normalizing Flows · invited talks at MIT IAIFI & Berkeley Lab
  • Mar 2025Awarded the U of T Connaught International Fellowship
  • Dec 2024Invited talk on the first-place Higgs solution at NeurIPS 2024 · Milestone award
Research

Select Papers

  1. PreprintUnder review
    Ibrahim Elsharkawy, et al.
    arXiv preprint, 2026
  2. PreprintUnder review
    Zachary Bogorad, Ibrahim Elsharkawy, et al.
    arXiv preprint, 2026
  3. The Omni family: cross-domain scientific foundation models
    Preprint2025–26Under review
    Ibrahim Elsharkawy, et al. (OmniMol); Vinicius Mikuni, et al. (OmniCosmos)
    Transferring particle-physics knowledge to molecular dynamics and cosmology.
  4. PreprintUnder review
    Ibrahim Elsharkawy and Yonatan Kahn
    arXiv preprint, 2025
Research

Research Focus

Physics for AI

Physics Data for Understanding ML

Leveraging the controllable generation and known symmetries of physics datasets to probe the internal mechanisms of deep neural networks.

Contrastive Normalizing Flows →

Physics for AI

Physics-Inspired Theory for Scaling Laws

Using effective field theory to predict neural-network ensemble behavior and derive uncertainty scaling laws without training an ensemble.

Ensemble Variance Scaling Laws →

AI for Physics

Automating Scientific Model Building

Developing ML for “theory inversion”: parameter estimation with uncertainty quantification, simulation emulation, and automated theory writing.

Generative Models on Phase Space →

AI for Physics

Cross-Domain Foundation Models

Foundation models for scientific point clouds that transfer knowledge across particle physics, cosmology, and molecular dynamics.

The Omni family →

Photography

Some fun Astrophotography and Portrait work.

Milky Way astrophotography by Ibrahim Elsharkawy
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