In 2016, a short time before the announcement of the first gravitational-wave detection, a cross-disciplinary initiative in Europe led to the establishment of the new CA16104 COST networking Action on Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics (GWverse). GWverse aims to maintain and consolidate leadership in black-hole physics and gravitational-wave science. The Action supports the training of the next generation of leaders in the field, and the very first “native” GW/multi-messenger astronomers, ready to tackle the challenges of high-precision GW astronomy with ground and space-based detectors.
The fourth and final global meeting of the Action will be a hybrid meeting. The meeting will be remote (via Zoom), with its core programme taking place in the afternoons, from 30 Aug – 03 September 2021.
However, for those willing and able to be in Lisbon in person, there will be additional sessions in the morning in the wonderful Academy of Sciences of Lisbon. A meeting of the Board of the Action is scheduled for the morning of Aug 30.
The first day of the meeting includes a public talk (at 16:00 PT) by well-known scientists Janna Levin (Columbia University) and Pedro G. Ferreira (Oxford University). To join this public event, please click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83173449837.
Brief Bio of Janna Levin and Pedro G. Ferreira
- Janna Levin is the Tow Professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University. She has contributed to an understanding of black holes, the cosmology of extra dimensions, and gravitational waves in the shape of spacetime. Among other prizes she has been named a Guggenheim Fellow. She is also director of sciences at the cultural center Pioneer Works and the editor-in-chief of The Broadcast. Her previous books include How the Universe Got Its Spots and a novel, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, which won the PEN/Bingham Prize. Her book, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, is the inside story on the discovery of the century: the sound of spacetime ringing from the collision of two black holes over a billion years ago. Her most recent book is Black Hole Survival Guide.
- Pedro G. Ferreira is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford. He studied and worked at Imperial College in London, at the University of California at Berkeley and at CERN in Geneva. He has held visiting positions at University of Edinburgh, at the Albert Einstein Institute in Berlin and at Columbia University in New York. His area of expertise is cosmology where he has pioneered research in the relic radiation left over from the Big Bang, the nature of the dark Universe (such as dark matter and dark energy) and has led the way in studying alternatives to Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. He has published over 200 papers and has delivered over 100 talks at universities, institutes and conferences all over Europe, America, Asia and Africa.
Pedro has written extensively outside academia, writing for Nature, Science, New Scientist, Physics World, Physics Today, Scientific American, Sky at Night, CERN Courier, BBC Focus, The Guardian. His most recent book, “The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity” has been published in over 20 countries and was shortlisted for the 2014 Royal Society Winton Science Book Prize.
