Marica Branchesi (

Urbino Urbino ( ; ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of ...

, March 7, 1977) is an Italian astrophysicist. Her leadership and scientific work was pivotal for

Virgo Virgo may refer to: *Virgo (astrology), the sixth astrological sign of the zodiac *Virgo (constellation), a constellation *Virgo Cluster, a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Virgo *Virgo Stellar Stream, remains of a dwarf galaxy *Virgo Supe ...

LIGO The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large ...

's discovery of

gravitational waves Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that Wave propagation, propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliv ...

. She is vice president of

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

Gravitational Wave Astrophysics Commission and member of the Gravitational Wave International Committee.

Education

Branchesi completed her undergraduate degree in astronomy in 2002, and obtained a Ph.D. from the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

in 2006, with a focus in

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming f ...

black holes A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can def ...

and

clusters of galaxies The observable universe is a ball-shaped region of the universe comprising all matter that can be observed from Earth or its space-based telescopes and exploratory probes at the present time, because the electromagnetic radiation from these obj ...

. She then moved to the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, where she met her husband, Jan Harms, German physicist and gravitational waves expert.

Research

After being awarded a grant by

Italian Minister of Education This is a list of Italian Ministers of Public Education ( it, Ministri della Pubblica Istruzione) since the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946. The list shows also the ministers that served under the same office but with other names, in fact ...

in 2009, she decided to move back to Italy, where she built her own research staff at the

University of Urbino The University of Urbino "Carlo Bo" ( it, Università degli Studi di Urbino "Carlo Bo", ''UniUrb'') is an Italian university located in Urbino, a walled hill-town in the region of Marche, located in the north-eastern part of central Italy. The ...

. She is now an assistant professor at the

Gran Sasso Science Institute The ''Gran Sasso Science Institute'' (GSSI) is an international school for advanced studies located in L'Aquila, Italy. Founded in 2012 as a research institute and superior graduate school dependent on the National Institute of Nuclear Physic ...

, where she works as co-liaison to coordinate between

's and

's follow up of sending gravitational-wave alerts in low-latency. At

, she also studied

gravitational wave Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...

s physics and

electromagnetic signal In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visible) ligh ...

s associated with gravitational signal sources. Notably, she was named one of

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

's "Ten people who mattered this year" for her work as liaison between

and

in the gravitational wave collaboration. She served as a link between the physicists and astronomers, and encouraged both groups to take tentative detections more seriously and coordinated telescopes to follow up on events as soon as they were discovered. Her current interests lie in understanding the nature of black holes and

neutron stars A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. Except for black holes and some hypothetical objects (e.g. white ...

, namely what governs their emission, formation and evolution. With her research, she aims to develop

multi-messenger astronomy Multi-messenger astronomy is astronomy based on the coordinated observation and interpretation of disparate "messenger" signals. Interplanetary probes can visit objects within the Solar System, but beyond that, information must rely on "extrasolar ...

that uses electromagnetic and gravitational waves to probe the most energetic phenomena in the universe.

Awards

* 2016 -

Breakthrough Prize The Breakthrough Prizes are a set of international awards bestowed in three categories by the Breakthrough Prize Board in recognition of scientific advances. The awards are part of several "Breakthrough" initiatives founded and funded by Yuri Mi ...

to Ligo/Virgo project for detection of gravitational waves 100 years after

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

predicted their existence. * 2017 - “ Ten people who mattered this year” of

. * 2018 - "

TIME 100 ''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, po ...

most influential people"

Works

* * * * *

References

External links