Lower Saxony State Award for Bruce Allen, Alessandra Buonanno and Karsten Danzmann

The prize recognizes contributions to gravitational wave detection

June 01, 2016

On 23 August 2016, the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Stephan Weil will present Prof. Alessandra Buonanno, Prof. Bruce Allen und Prof. Karsten Danzmann with the Lower Saxony State Award 2016. Alessandra Buonanno is director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (MPI) in Potsdam, and her colleagues Bruce Allen and Karsten Danzmann are directors of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover and professors at the Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH). The three scientists are being honored for their fundamental contributions to the first detection of gravitational waves, reported in Physical Review Letters. About 100 of the approximately 1000 authors are from the MPI and LUH. The award will be presented in the Gallery Building in Hannover-Herrenhausen. The laudatory speech will be given by science writer and astrophysicist Dr. Thomas Bührke. The presentation is open to the media.

„All three scientists have made crucial contributions to the detection of gravitational waves in several key areas. In many years of research, they have worked on the development of essential elements for the complex detection, ranging from sophisticated detector technology to theoretical models of gravitational waves and the statistical analysis of the detector data“, declared the jury. The jury has ten members and is headed by Friedrich von Lenthe, chairman of the VGH Trust (VGH-Stiftung).

The Lower Saxony State Award recognizes outstanding achievements in culture, gender equality, social welfare, science, environment or economy of Lower Saxony. The prize was established in 1978 and is endowed with 35,000 Euros.

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