Prof. Dr. Alessandra Buonanno
Director at Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Head of the department Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity
Address:
Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik
(Albert-Einstein-Institut)
Am Mühlenberg 1
D-14476 Potsdam
GERMANY
Phone: +49 331 567-7220
Fax: +49 331 567-7298
E-mail: alessandra.buonanno@aei.mpg.de
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Data
Nationalities: | Italian (by birth), USA (naturalized) |
Education
1993 - 1996 |
Ph.D. in Physics, University of Pisa, Italy |
1993 | Master in Physics (Laurea), University of Pisa, Italy |
Employment
2020 - present | Research Professor, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD |
2017 - present | Honorary Professor of Physics, Humboldt University, Berlin |
2017 - present |
Honorary Professor of Physics, Potsdam University, Potsdam |
2014 - present |
Director, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics |
2014 - present | Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society |
2014 - 2020 | College Park Professor, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD |
2010 - 2014 | Professor, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD |
Sep 2005 - 2010 | Associate Professor (tenured), Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD |
2005 - 2014 | Visiting Associate, Caltech, Pasadena, CA |
Sep 2005 - |
Chargée de Recherche de 1 ere classe (tenured) of CNRS (on leave of absence), Laboratoire d’Astroparticule et Cosmologie (APC), Paris, France |
Jan 2005 - Aug 2005 |
Chargée de Recherche de 1 ere classe (tenured) of CNRS, Laboratoire d’Astroparticule et Cosmologie (APC), Paris, France |
Dec 2001 - |
Chargée de Recherche de 1 ere classe (tenured) of CNRS, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris (IAP), Paris, France |
Jan 2002 - Oct 2002 |
Visiting Associate, Caltech, Pasadena, CA |
1999 - 2001 | Richard C. Tolman Prize Postdoctoral Fellow, Caltech, Pasadena, CA |
1997 - 1999 | Postdoctoral Fellow, Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES), Bures-sur-Yvette (Paris), France |
Jan 1997 - Sep 1997 |
Research Associate, Theoretical Division of CERN, Geneva, Switzerland |
Awards and Honors
2023 | Oskar Klein Medal and Memorial Lecture by Stockholm University and the Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences |
2023 | Elected member of the Italian National Academy of Sciences |
2022 | Tomalla Prize of the Tomalla Foundation for Gravity Research |
2021 | Balzan Prize of the International Balzan Prize Foundation (shared with T. Damour) |
2021 | Dirac Medal and Prize of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (shared with T. Damour, F. Pretorius and S. Teukolsky) |
2021 | Elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences |
2021 | Elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina |
2021 | Elected member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities |
2021 | Galileo Galilei Medal of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) (shared with T. Damour and F. Pretorius) |
2019 | 8th Benjamin Lee Professorship, Asian Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics, South Korea |
2018 | Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (€ 2.5 million) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) |
2016 | Lower Saxony State Prize (shared with B. Allen and K. Danzmann) |
2014 - 2020 | Distinguished Visiting Research Chair, Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Canada |
2011 - 2012 | William and Flora Hewlett Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA |
2011 | Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) |
2010 |
Elected Fellow of the International Society of General Relativity and Gravitation |
2007 |
Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, |
2006 - 2008 |
Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship |
1999 - 2002 |
Richard C. Tolman Prize Fellow, Caltech, Pasadena, CA |
2000 |
Italian Society of General Relativity and Gravitational Physics (SIGRAV) Prize |
Awards as member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration
2017 | U.K. Group Achievement Award of the Royal Astronomical Society to the LIGO Scientific Collaboration |
2017 | Einstein Medal of the Einstein Society in Bern, Switzerland, to the LIGO Scientific Collaboration |
2017 | Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research to R. Drever, K. Thorne and R. Weiss, and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration |
2017 | HEAD Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) to G. Gonzalez, and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration |
2016 | Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics to R. Drever, K. Thorne and R. Weiss, and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration |
2016 | Gruber Cosmology Prize to R. Drever, K. Thorne and R. Weiss, and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration |
Selected Service in the Physics Community
2023 - present |
Member of the Dirac Medal Committee |
2023 - present | Member of the Research Board of the Austrian Academy of Sciences |
2023 - present | Member of the Solvay International Scientific Committee for Physics |
2022 - present | Member of the Committee of the Aspen Institute Italia Award for Scientific Research and Collaboration between Italy and the United States |
2019 - 2021 | Member of the Senior Committee (appointed by the Director of Science) of the European Space Agency (ESA) for Voyage 2050 |
2019 - 2022 | Member of the Kavli Prize Committee in Astrophysics |
2019 - present | Member of the Advisory Board of the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, Paris |
2018 - present | Member of the Advisory Board of the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA |
2018 - present | Member of the LISA Consortium Board |
2017 - 2019 | Member of the Gravitational Physics Division (GPD) Board of the European Physical Society |
2012 - 2015 | Member of the Committee of International Freedom of Scientists of the American Physical Society (APS) |
2010 - 2013 | Member of the Advisory Board of KITP, Santa Barbara, CA |
2005 - present |
Principal Investigator of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration |