Alberto Vecchio

Alberto Vecchio
Born	Mantua, Italy
Occupations	Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Awards	Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, 2016
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Milano
Academic advisor	Bruno Bertotti
Academic work
Discipline	Theoretical physics
Institutions	University of Birmingham
Notable students	Chiara Mingarelli
Main interests	gravitational waves

Alberto Vecchio (Italian pronunciation: [alˈbɛrto ˈvɛkkjo]) is a physicist, a professor at the University of Birmingham 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 to Advanced LIGO which resulted in the discovery of gravitational waves in February 2016.

Education

Vecchio graduated with a degree in theoretical physics as an undergraduate at Ghislieri College and the University of Pavia. He obtained a PhD in astronomy from the University of Milan in 1996, where he worked with Bruno Bertotti, one of Erwin Schrödinger'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.