Davide Gerosa

Caltech

CV

A pdf version of my (hopefully updated) CV is available here, or just read below for a more extended version.

These are my Linkedin and my brandyourself profiles; my ORCID is 0000-0002-0933-3579 (not updated very often…)

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Resumé

  • 2016 – now: Einstein Fellow, Caltech, USA.
  • 2013 – 2016: PhD, University of Cambridge, UK.
  • 2010 – 2013: MSc, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.
  • 2007 – 2010: BSc, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.

Personal Information

  • Address: California Institute of Technology, TAPIR MC 350-17, 1200 E California Blvd, Pasadena CA 91125, USA.
  • Date of birth: May, 1988.
  • Citizenship: Italian, EU.

Research Experience

  • 2016 – now: California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA.
    • Postdoctoral scholar in the Caltech TAPIR (Theoretical AstroPhysics Including Relativity) group.
    • Support:  Part of the NASA prize fellowship program, Einstein Fellowships are prestigious awards in theoretical astrophysics consisting of personal research grant at selected US institution. NASA press release available here
  • 2013 -2016: University of Cambridge, UK
    • Ph.D. candidate, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP).
    • Advisor: Ulrich Sperhake.
    • Thesis: Source modelling at the dawn of gravitational-wave astronomy.  Thesis resulted in 14 publications. Available at: doi.org/10.17863/CAM.6523
    • Support: Isaac Newton Studentship and STFC Ph.D. Studentship. The Isaac Newton Studentship is the most prestigious prize PhD scholarship in astronomy of the University of Cambridge.
  • Extended research visits
    • 2015, Institut Astrophysique de Paris, France.
      • Host: Enrico Barausse.
      • Funded by the Rouse Ball Travelling Studentship in Mathematics of Trinity College.
    • 2012, California Institute of Technology, CA USA.
      • LIGO Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF).
      • Advisor: Emanuele Berti.
      • Project title: Spin Alignment Effects in Black Hole Binaries.
      • Special coverage received by the Caltech outreach journal CURJ
    • 2012, University of Mississippi, MS USA.
      • Host: Emanuele Berti.

Education

  • 2010-2013: Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.
    • Master’s degree in Astrophysics (Laurea Magistrale), Dipartimento di Fisica.
    • Grades:
      • Final degree grade: 110/110 with distinction (“cum laude”).
      • Average class grade: 30/30 with 7/12 distinctions (“cum laude”).
      • Full transcripts
    •   Final research thesis:
      • Advisors: Emanuele Berti, Giuseppe Lodato.
      • Title: Black hole spin alignment in astrophysical environments. Thesis resulted in 2 publications.
  • 2007-2010: Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.
    • Bachelor’s degree in Physics (Laurea Triennale), Dipartimento di Fisica.
    • Grades:
      • Final degree grade: 110/110 with distinction (“cum laude”).
      • Average class grade: 29.84/30 with 18/26 distinctions (“cum laude”).
      • Full transcripts.
    • Final research thesis
      • Advisor: Dietmar Klemm.
      • Title: Physical applications of Finsler geometry (Applicazioni fisiche della geometria di Finsler).
  •  2002-2007: Liceo Scientifico Statale Paolo Frisi, Monza, Italy
    • Scientific High School Degree (Liceo Scientifico Piano Nazionale Informatica), Liceo Frisi Monza MB.
    • Grades:
      • Final degree grade: 100/100.

Grants, scholarships and awards

  • 2018. Giulio Rampa PhD Thesis Prize, Italian Society for Relativity and Gravitational Physics (SIGRAV).
    • The announcement reads: “Dr. Gerosa’s Ph.D. Thesis on “Source modelling at the dawn of gravitational-wave astronomy” shows an impressive ability to master a rather broad range of topics in relativistic astrophysics and gravitational wave physics. The research initiated by Dr. Gerosa in these areas has triggered follow-up work, providing new important insights and new physical scenarios. The large impact that the work of Dr. Gerosa has already had can only continue to grow.“
  • 2017. Stefano Braccini PhD Thesis Prize, Gravitational Wave International Committee.
    • The announcement reads: “Dr. Gerosa received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and was nominated by his adviser, Prof. Ulrich Sperhake. Dr. Gerosa’s thesis includes a wide variety of topics relevant to gravitational waves, as well as other topics in astrophysics: astrophysical explorations of accretion disks, analytically challenging work in mathematical relativity and post-Newtonian theory, and numerical relativity coding of supernova core-collapse in relativity and modified gravity.“
  • 2016. NASA Einstein Fellowship, Caltech, Pasadena CA, USA
  • 2013. Isaac Newton Studentship, University of Cambridge, UK
  • 2013. STFC Ph.D. Studentship, Science & Technology Facilities Council, UK
  • 2016. Royal Astronomical Society travel grant, UK RAS.
  • 2014. Rouse Ball Travelling Studentship in Mathematics, Trinity College, Cambridge UK
  • 2015. Smith-Rayleigh-Knight Essay Prize, Faculty of Mathematics, Cambridge UK
  • 2015, 2016. Darwin College travel grant, Darwin College (twice), Cambridge UK
  • 2014, 2015. Cambridge Philosophical Society travel grant (twice), Cambridge UK
  • 2007, 2008. Undergraduate Studentship, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
  • 2009. Award assigned by the cultural association “Famiglia Legnanese” to best Italian College students, Legnano MI, Italy.
  • 2007. Award assigned by the website matematicamente.it to the best italian high-school research project, presenting my work  “Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?” about dark matter.

Teaching and Mentoring

  • Ph.D. student projects:
    • Ron Tso, Caltech, 2017-2018.
      • Co-supervised with Y. Chen
  • Undergrad student mentoring:
    • Jakub Vosmera, University of Cambridge, 2015.
    • Benedetta Veronesi, University of Milan, 2015.
      • Bachelor’s thesis; co-supervised with G. Lodato.
      • Project title: Spin alignment and differential accretion in merging black-hole binaries.
      • Scientific publication: CQG 34 (2017) 6, 064004
    • Riccardo Barbieri, University of Cambridge (visiting from University of Pavia), 2016.
      • Summer project;  main supervisor.
      • Exchange program between Università degli Studi di Pavia and St. John College Cambridge.
      • Project title: Measuring black-hole kicks with gravitational-wave observations.
    • Katie Chamberlain, Caltech (visiting from Montana State University), 2016
      • Summer project;  main supervisor.
      • Funded by the LIGO SURF program.
      • Project title: New frequency-domain gravitational-wave approximant to detect black hole recoils.
    • Riccardo Barbieri, Caltech (visiting from University of Pavia), 2018.
      • Master’s thesis;  main supervisor.
      • Project title: Interactions of supermassive black-hole binaries and their accretion disks.
    • Luca Reali, University of Milan, 2018.
      • Bachelor’s thesis;  main supervisor.
      • Project title: Exploring correlations between spins and post-merger quantities in merging black-hole binaries.
    • Alicia Lima, Caltech (visiting from Bowdoin College), 2018.
      • Summer project;  main supervisor.
      • Funded by the LIGO SURF program.
      • Project title: Visualizing 2PN binary black-hole spin precession.
  •  Teaching assistant:
    • 2013, 2014, 2015. Part II General Relativity (third-year undergrad class), University of Cambridge, UK
    • 2015, 2016. Part III General Relativity (master class), University of Cambridge, UK

Outreach and Service

  • Referee:
    • Physical Review Letters,
    • Physical Review D,
    • Science Advances,
    • The Astrophysical Journal,
    • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
    • General Relativity and Gravitation,
    • Europhysics Letters,European Physical Journal Plus.
  • Outreach activities
    • 2016. TV Interview on gravitational waves and black-hole kicks aired on Cambridge TV.
    • 2015. Actively involved in the Cambridge Science Festival, faculty of Mathematics.
    • since 2013, Scientific journalist for the Italian on-line newspaper  ilsussidiario.net
    • since 2011, Introductory astronomy and relativity lectures to high-school students
    • 2008. Author in an undergraduate lecture-notes textbook on “Waves and Oscillations”, containing lecture notes by Alberto Vailati, edited by CUSL press.
    • since 2008. Member of the Euresis association for the promotion of the scientific endeavor. The association prepares science talks and exhibits visited by thousands of people per year.
  • Code and data sharing
    • Developer of open-source Python module precession. Toolbox to study the post-Newtonian dynamics of spinning black-hole binaries; used in 10+ publications
    • Developer of open-source Python module surrkick. Extractions of black hole recoils from numerical-relativity surrogate models.
    • Developer of open-source Python module gwdet. Detectability of gravitational-wave signals from compact binaries.
    • Open source project: filltex, automatic LaTex bibliography.
    • Research outputs: public catalog of numerical relativity waveforms; black-hole binary spin precession animations.
  • Memberships: LISA Consortium; GWIC 3G Team (planning for a 3rd Generation ground-based gravitational- wave network); American Physical Society; Royal Astronomical Society.
  • Work Experience:
    • 2013, High-school maths teacher, Liceo Don Gnocchi, Carate Brianza MB, Italy.
    • 2013, Maths and physics tutoring for undergraduate students, CEUR foundation, Milan, Italy.

Skills

  • Programming languages: Python (advanced), Mathematica, C, Fortran, Bash.
  • Other scientific tools: LIGO lalsuite, LaTex, GIT, SVN, Gnuplot, SuperMongo.
  • Languages: Italian (native), English (fluent).