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.
  - Summer project; main supervisor.
  - Funded by the Cambridge Summer Research in Mathematics Programme.
  - Project title: On the equal-mass limit of precessing black-hole binaries.
  - Scientific publication: CQG 34 (2017) 6, 064004
- 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 for: Physical Review Letters, Physical Review D, Astrophysical Journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, General Relativity and Gravitation, European Physical Journal Plus, Europhysics Letters.

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.

Organized conferences
- “Numerical Relativity beyond General Relativity“, SOC, Benasque Physics Center, Spain, 2018.
- “APS Pacific Coast Gravity Meeting” PCGM34, SOC & LOC, California Institute of Technology, USA, 2018.
- “The disc migration issue: from protoplanets to supermassive black holes“, SOC & LOC, Kavli Institute, University of Cambridge, UK, 2017.
- “Einstein’s Legacy: celebrating 100 years of General Relativity“, SOC, London Queen Mary, UK, 2015.

Memberships: LISA Consortium; GWIC 3G Team (planning for a 3rd Generation ground-based gravitational- wave network); American Physical Society; Royal Astronomical Society.

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.

Academic Service
- 2018-now. Seminar organizer, TAPIR seminar series, Caltech.
- 2017-now. Observer member in management committee of European COST Action grant CA16104 “GWverse“.
- 2013 – 2016. Ph.D. student representative in the Gravitational Physics Group at the UK Institute of Physics (IoP).
- 2008 – 2012. Undergraduate student representative, Physical science faculty council, University of Milan, Italy. Elected in public elections,
- 2008 – 2012. Undergraduate student representative, Physics degree coordination committee, University of Milan, Italy. Elected in public elections,
- 2005, 2006. Student representative, High School Student Assembly of the Milan Province (Consulta provinciale degli studenti), elected in public elections (twice).

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).

Picture: (very) cold dawn at the top of Grignetta, Italy