[picture]
 Alessandra Buonanno
Professor of Physics
University of Maryland, 
College Park, MD 20742-4111 
Gravitation Theory Group - Department of Physics
Room 4212
Phone: (301)-405-1440 
FAX: (301)-314-9525 
E-mail: buonanno@umd.edu



I was an undergraduate and graduate student at the Department of Physics of the University of Pisa, in Italy. After spending eight
months at CERN, as research associate, I went to the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, in the Paris area, as postdoctoral
scholar and, then, to the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, as Tolman fellow. I was then hired by the Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, as chargée de recherche de premiere classe (CR1). I worked at the Institut d'
Astrophysique de Paris and then at the Laboratoire Astroparticule et Cosmologie, in Paris. I joined the Physics faculty at Maryland
in September 2005.  
 
Curriculum vitae
Research interests: theoretical physics, gravitational-wave physics and cosmology of the early Universe

My current research covers a wide range of problems related to the theory and the detection of gravitational waves, including


- analytical description of the two-body dynamics during the last stages of inspiral, plunge and merger 
 
- interfacing analytical and numerical relativity in modeling gravitational waves emitted by black-hole binaries

- spin effects in compact binaries

- quantum-optical noise in gravitational-wave detectors

- design of gravitational-wave detectors operating at or below the standard quantum limit

- primordial gravitational waves


I am a member of the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics


I am a member of the Joint Space-Science Institute


I am a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration

Current group members:

Enrico Barausse  (postdoctoral scholar)

Alexandre Le Tiec  (postdoctoral scholar)

Yi Pan (postdoctoral scholar)

Tyson Littenberg (postdoctoral scholar, joined with NASA Goddard Flight Space Center)

Craig Robinson (postdoctoral scholar)


Andrea Taracchini (graduate student)

Former group members:

Jeremy Schnittman (staff, NASA Goddard Flight Space Center)

Etienne Racine (Fellow, Canadian Space Agency)

Evan Ochsner (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee)

Teaching:

- Gravitational-wave physics (PHYS 879)
 
   Spring 2006
 
- Classical mechanics (PHYS 405)

   Spring 2007, 2008, 2009


- Introduction to Gravity, Relativity and Cosmology (PHYS 675)

   Fall 2008, 2009, 2010


Recent Publications
(Via Spires Database )

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Last updated: August, 25 2010
Send your comments to: buonanno@umd.edu