It’s a very busy period for me as the Cardiff University Data Innovation Research Institute (DII) gears up for some exciting new activities in both teaching and research (of which more in due course) and embarks on is strategy for promoting and fostering interdisciplinary research across Cardiff University and beyond.
Yesterday, however, I attended an informal meeting in the School of Physics & Astronomy at which we had an update about other strategic developments in the Gravitational Physics Group, some of whose members work in the DII Following on from the first-ever detection of gravitational waves earlier this year the group has ambitious plans to build on its involvement in this discovery. Here’s a nice short video produced by Cardiff University that discusses this discovery:
Cardiff University has supported research on gravitational waves for a very long time, and it is important that it reaps the benefit now that its investment is starting to pay off. To rest on laurels at this stage would be to risk losing the benefits of that sustained investment. It was very exciting to hear about the group’s plans for further sustained expansion, which will make the Cardiff one of the leading centres of gravitational wave research in the world.
I’ve already mentioned on this blog that a couple of new positions have already been advertised, one in gravitational wave astronomy (to consolidate existing activities in theory and data analysis) and the other in a completely new area of Gravitational Wave Experimentation. Those advertisements have now closed and the process of filling the vacancies is under way.
However, yesterday we heard of even more expansion of gravitational physics research, in the form of a new academic position in Time Domain Astronomy with particular emphasis on transient sources of electromagnetic radiation that could be associated with gravitational wave production (such as gamma-ray bursts). I’ll post the advertisement on this blog when it is available. And that’s just the start: further positions will be released over the next few years which will turn Cardiff into a true Centre of Gravity.
Exciting times!
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