麻豆传媒

Astrophysicist Patrick Brady at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee yesterday began his duties as spokesperson for the international scientific collaboration that studies gravitational waves using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). The spokesperson of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) speaks on behalf of the 1,300 scientists in 20 countries who are engaged in gravitational wave research with data from observatories located in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana. Brady, a UWM professor of physics and director of the Leonard E. Parker Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics, is sixth in an elite group of scientists who have served as LSC spokespersons since the LSC formed in the late 1990s. Former spokespersons were Nobel Prize winner Rainer Weiss (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Peter Saulson (Syracuse University), Dave Reitze (Caltech), Gabriela Gonzalez (Louisiana State University) and David Shoemaker (MIT). Brady’s research focuses on the analysis and interpretation of data from the network of gravitational-wave detectors. He served on the executive committee of the LSC from 2004-2006, and has co-chaired the LSC Inspiral Analysis Group and chaired the LSC Data Analysis Software Working Group. He joined the UW-Milwaukee faculty in 1999, after a fellowship at Caltech. In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and he shared in the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize. Video from 2017: https://www.pbs.org/video/measuring-gravity-waves-with-ligo-vkft6w/

Ben Farr is a recipient is a recipient of a 2022 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the NSF鈥檚 most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty. As member of the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration, Farr co-developed the parameter estimation software used to characterize compact binary mergers from their gravitational wave signatures. More generally, Farr is interested in applying Bayesian forward-modeling techniques to astronomical data sets. Farr received his Ph.D. in physics and astronomy from Northwestern University. He has been on the UO faculty since 2017.