Nicholas Boffi

Nicholas M. Boffi

nboffi at andrew dot cmu dot edu

Scholar / GitHub / Twitter / CV

I am an assistant professor in the Machine Learning Department and the Department of Mathematical Sciences at CMU. I lead a small, focused team that studies the algorithmic foundations of generative models and their application to problems across artificial intelligence, science, and engineering.

Previously, I was a Courant Instructor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences working with Eric Vanden-Eijnden. I completed my PhD in applied mathematics at Harvard co-advised by Jean-Jacques Slotine and Chris Rycroft. A longer bio is here.

Research / Publications / Code / Teaching / Application Materials

Research Group

The aim of our group is to develop principled methods for generative modeling and to apply them to problems across core machine learning, science, and engineering. We are particularly interested in scientific challenges that are impossible with more traditional computational tools. Some current topics of interest include accelerated inference in flows and diffusions, inference-time guidance, and sampling from unnormalized measures.

PhD Students

Jerry Huang
Computer Science Department

Stephen Huan
Computer Science Department
co-advised with Andrej Risteski

Masters Students

Kartik Nair
Machine Learning Department

Sheel Shah
Machine Learning Department

Undergraduate Students

Ishin Shah
Department of Mathematical Sciences
co-advised with Max Simchowitz

Publications

Stochastic Interpolants: A Unifying Framework for Flows and Diffusions

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Journal of Machine Learning Research, 2025

Flow map matching with stochastic interpolants: A mathematical framework for consistency models

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Transactions on Machine Learning Research, 2025

Model-free learning of probability flows: Elucidating the nonequilibrium dynamics of flocking

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Physical Review Letters, 2025

Shallow diffusion networks provably learn hidden low-dimensional structure

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International Conference on Learning Representations, 2025

How to build a consistency model: Learning flow maps via self-distillation

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Neural Information Processing Systems, 2025

BoltzNCE: Learning Likelihoods for Boltzmann Generation with Stochastic Interpolants and Noise Contrastive Estimation

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Neural Information Processing Systems, 2025

Multimarginal generative modeling with stochastic interpolants

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International Conference on Learning Representations, 2024

Deep learning probability flows and entropy production rates in active matter

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2024

Stochastic interpolants with data-dependent couplings

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International Conference on Machine Learning, 2024 (Spotlight)

Probabilistic Forecasting with Stochastic Interpolants and Föllmer Processes

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International Conference on Machine Learning, 2024

SiT: Exploring Flow and Diffusion-based Generative Models with Scalable Interpolant Transformers

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European Conference on Computer Vision, 2024

Agile Catching with Whole-Body MPC and Blackbox Policy Learning

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Learning for Dynamics and Control, 2023

How microscopic epistasis and clonal interference shape the fitness trajectory in a spin glass model of microbial long-term evolution

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eLife, 2023

Probability flow solution of the Fokker-Planck equation

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Machine Learning Science and Technology, 2023

The role of optimization geometry in single neuron learning

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International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, 2022

Adversarially robust stability certificates can be sample efficient

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Learning for Dynamics and Control, 2022

Non-parametric adaptive control and prediction: theory and randomized algorithms

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Journal of Machine Learning Research (conference version at CDC 2021), 2022

Implicit regularization and momentum algorithms in nonlinearly parameterized adaptive control and prediction

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Neural Computation, 2021 (Cover)

Regret bounds for adaptive nonlinear control

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Learning for Dynamics and Control, 2021 (Oral)

Manifold learning for coarse-graining atomistic simulations: Application to amorphous solids

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Acta Materialia, 2021

A continuous-time analysis of distributed stochastic gradient

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Neural Computation, 2020

Parallel three-dimensional simulations of quasi-static elastoplastic solids

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Computer Physics Communications, 2020

Coordinate transformation methodology for simulating quasi-static elastoplastic solids

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Physical Review E, 2020

Learning stability certificates from data

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Conference on Robot Learning, 2020

Asymptotic behavior and interpretation of virtual states: the effects of confinement and of basis sets

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Journal of Chemical Physics, 2016

Efficient computation of the Hartree-Fock Exchange in real-space with projection operators

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Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, 2016

Characterizing the inverses of block tridiagonal, block Toeplitz matrices

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Computational Science and Discovery, 2014

The role of dimensionality in the decay of surface effects

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Journal of Chemical Physics, 2013

Code

We are strong advocates for reproducible science and open-source software. We believe that they have been key drivers of the recent advances in AI research, and we make all our code publicly available to continue this tradition.

  1. jax-interpolants
    A JAX implementation of the stochastic interpolant framework for generative modeling
  2. jax-edm2
    A JAX implementation of NVIDIA's EDM2 U-Net architecture
  3. flow-maps (with Michael Albergo and Eric Vanden Eijnden)
    A JAX implementation of the self-distillation framework for learning flow maps and consistency models
  4. model-free probability flows (with Eric Vanden Eijnden)
    Code for model-free learning of probability flows in nonequilibrium dynamics
  5. structured diffusion (with Arthur Jacot and Stephen Tu)
    Experiments verifying provable guarantees for when shallow diffusion networks can learn hidden structure
  6. flow map matching (with Michael Albergo and Eric Vanden Eijnden)
    A JAX implementation of the flow map matching framework for learning flow maps and consistency models
  7. forecasting with interpolants (with Mengjian Hua, Yifan Chen, Mark Goldstein, Eric Vanden Eijnden, and Michael Albergo -- mostly written by the first three authors!)
    An implementation of probabilistic forecasting with stochastic interpolants
  8. active probability flows (with Eric Vanden Eijnden)
    Code for learning probability flows and entropy production rates in active matter
  9. stochastic interpolants (with Michael Albergo and Eric Vanden Eijnden)
    An implementation of the unifying stochastic interpolant framework for flows and diffusions in generative modeling
  10. score-based transport modeling (with Eric Vanden Eijnden)
    Code for constructing a probability flow solution of the Fokker-Planck equation
  11. spin glass evolutionary dynamics (with Yipei Guo, Chris Rycroft, and Ariel Amir)
    High-resolution C++ simulation code to model Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiment, taking into account microscopic epistasis and clonal interference in microbial evolution
  12. shear transformation zone++ (with Chris Rycroft)
    Three-dimensional MPI-based C++ code for parallel simulation of quasi-static deformation in elastoplastic solids
  13. real-space Hartree-Fock (with Amir Natan, note: only the Hartree-Fock implementation)
    Parallelized Fortran code to efficiently compute the Hartree-Fock exchange via the use of projection operators onto occupied and virtual states

Teaching

I teach mathematically- and computationally-oriented courses in applied mathematics and machine learning. Below is a list of past, present, and future offerings.

Carnegie Mellon, Spring 2025: Methods of Optimization

Carnegie Mellon, Fall 2024: Introduction to PDEs: A Computational Approach

NYU Courant, Spring 2024: Honors Numerical Analysis

NYU Courant, Fall 2023: Linear and Nonlinear Optimization

NYU Courant, Spring 2023: Linear and Nonlinear Optimization

NYU Courant, Fall 2022: Numerical Analysis

NYU Courant, Spring 2022: Linear and Nonlinear Optimization

NYU Courant, Fall 2021: Numerical Analysis

Northwestern, Full Year 2014: Introduction to Computer Programming for Integrated Science