Alberto Vecchio () is a

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, a professor at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

in the School of Physics and Astronomy, and the Director of the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy. He was a contributor in the upgrade of

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. Prior to LIG ...

to Advanced LIGO which resulted in the discovery of

gravitational waves Gravitational waves are oscillations of the gravitational field that travel through space at the speed of light; they are generated by the relative motion of gravitating masses. They were proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1893 and then later by H ...

in February 2016.

Education

Vecchio graduated with a degree in theoretical physics as an undergraduate at

Ghislieri College The Ghislieri College (Italian: ''Collegio Ghislieri''), founded in 1567 by Pope Pius V, is the second-oldest college in Pavia and co-founder of the IUSS in Pavia as well. History Collegio Ghislieri is a 450-year-old Italian institution c ...

and the

University of Pavia The University of Pavia (, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; ) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest un ...

. He obtained a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in astronomy from the

University of Milan The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...

in 1996, where he worked with

Bruno Bertotti Bruno Bertotti (24 December 1930 – 20 October 2018) was an Italian physicist, emeritus professor at the University of Pavia. He was one of the last students of physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Bertotti was well known for his contributions to gener ...

, one of

Erwin Schrödinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger ( ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was an Austrian-Irish theoretical physicist who developed fundamental results in quantum field theory, quantum theory. In particul ...

's last students.

LIGO

Working in collaboration with other scientists at University of Birmingham, Vecchio helped build and test instruments to detect gravitational waves. After these were improved further as part of the Advanced LIGO upgrade, gravitational waves were detected. These instruments allowed the properties of the sources from the gravitational wave signatures to be extracted.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vecchio, Alberto Academics of the University of Birmingham Gravitational-wave astronomers 21st-century Italian physicists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)