Kip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist and writer known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. Along with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish, he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.
Rainer "Rai" Weiss is a German-born American physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He is a professor of physics emeritus at MIT and an adjunct professor at LSU. He is best known for inventing the laser interferometric technique which is the basic operation of LIGO. He was Chair of the COBE Science Working Group.
The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics is a Max Planck Institute whose research is aimed at investigating Einstein's theory of relativity and beyond: Mathematics, quantum gravity, astrophysical relativity, and gravitational-wave astronomy. The institute was founded in 1995 and is located in the Potsdam Science Park in Golm, Potsdam and in Hannover where it closely collaborates with the Leibniz University Hannover. Both the Potsdam and the Hannover parts of the institute are organized in three research departments and host a number of independent research groups.
Gravitational-wave astronomy is a subfield of astronomy concerned with the detection and study of gravitational waves emitted by astrophysical sources.
Bernard F. Schutz FInstP FLSW is an American and naturalised British physicist. He is well known for his research in Einstein's theory of general relativity, especially for his contributions to the detection of gravitational waves, and for his textbooks. Schutz is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor of physics and astronomy at Cardiff University, and was a founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany, where he led the Astrophysical Relativity division from 1995 to 2014. Schutz was a founder and principal investigator of the GEO gravitational wave collaboration, which became part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC). Schutz was also one of the initiators of the proposal for the space-borne gravitational wave detector LISA, and he coordinated the European planning for its data analysis until the mission was adopted by ESA in 2016. Schutz conceived and in 1998 began publishing from the AEI the online open access (OA) review journal Living Reviews in Relativity, which for many years has been the highest-impact OA journal in the world, as measured by Clarivate.
Alessandra Buonanno is an Italian-American theoretical physicist and director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam. She is the head of the "Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity" department. She holds a research professorship at the University of Maryland, College Park, and honorary professorships at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and the University of Potsdam. She is a leading member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which observed gravitational waves from a binary black-hole merger in 2015.
Marc Kamionkowski is an American theoretical physicist and currently the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. His research interests include particle physics, dark matter, inflation, the cosmic microwave background and gravitational waves.
Maura Ann McLaughlin is an astrophysics professor at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia known for her work on fast radio bursts (FRBs).
David Ernest McClelland is an Australian physicist, with his research focused on the development of the manipulation and control of optical quantum states, and its implementation into gravitational wave observatories. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America. Since 2001, he has been a professor at the Australian National University (ANU) in the Research School of Physics and Engineering, in Canberra (Australia). He is Director of the ANU's Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics and Deputy Director of OzGrav - the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Gravitational Wave Discovery.
Lynn Cominsky is an American astrophysicist and educator. She was the Chair of Astronomy and Physics at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California from August 2004 through August 2019. She is currently the Project Director for the NASA Education and Public Outreach Group.
Chiara Mingarelli is an Italian-Canadian astrophysicist who researches gravitational waves. She is an assistant professor of physics at Yale University since 2023, and previously an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut (2020–2023). She is also a science writer and communicator.
Samaya Michiko Nissanke is an astrophysicist, associate professor in gravitational wave and multi-messenger astrophysics and the spokesperson for the GRAPPA Centre for Excellence in Gravitation and Astroparticle Physics at the University of Amsterdam. She works on gravitational-wave astrophysics and has played a founding role in the emerging field of multi-messenger astronomy. She played a leading role in the discovery paper of the first binary neutron star merger, GW170817, seen in gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation.
Karan Jani is an Indian astrophysicist working on black holes, gravitational waves, and testing Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. He is currently an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Vanderbilt University, and holds the endowed position of Cornelius Vanderbilt Dean’s Faculty Fellow. He has worked at the LIGO Livingston Observatory in the US, the Albert Einstein Institute in Germany, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada. He is a member of the Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations effort to build a gravitational wave detector LIGO in India.
Norna Robertson is a lead scientist at LIGO at California Institute of Technology, and professor of experimental physics at the University of Glasgow. Her career has focused on experimental research into suspension systems and instrumentation to achieve the detection of gravitational waves.
GW 190814 was a gravitational wave (GW) signal observed by the LIGO and Virgo detectors on 14 August 2019 at 21:10:39 UTC, and having a signal-to-noise ratio of 25 in the three-detector network. The signal was associated with the astronomical super event S190814bv, located 790 million light years away, in location area 18.5 deg2 towards Cetus or Sculptor. No optical counterpart was discovered despite an extensive search of the probability region.
Nicolás Yunes is an Argentinian theoretical physicist who is a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the founding director of the Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe (ICASU). He is particularly interested in extreme gravity, gravitational waves, and compact binaries.
Rana X. Adhikari is an American experimental physicist. He is a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and an associate faculty member of the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (ICTS-TIFR).
Alessandra Corsi is an Italian astronomer known for her work as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration on gravitational-wave astronomy, and on multi-messenger astronomy combining gravitational and electromagnetic signals. She is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Texas Tech University.
Vuk Mandić is a Serbian-American astrophysicist and professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Minnesota. In 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).
Laura Cadonati is an American physicist who specializes in gravitational waves.
