Andrew Lundgren

Andrew Lundgren

Institut de FĂ­sica d'Altes Energies

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

I was an undergrad at MIT. I got my PhD in 2008 from Cornell University, working with James W. York, Jr. and Eanna Flanagan on topics in theoretical gravity. I was a postdoctoral associate at Syracuse University, where I joined the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, then a postdoc at Penn State. In 2011, I moved to the Albert Einstein Institut in Hannover, Germany, in Bruce Allen's group, as a senior scientist.
In 2017, I was hired to build a new gravitational wave group at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth. I became Full Professor in 2023. In 2024, I became an ICREA and moved to the Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies, where I have formed a new LIGO group.

Research interests

My research in gravitational waves spans data analysis and detector characterization. I developed the first template bank that could detect spinning binaries by using ideas from Riemannian geometry. I have developed many of the analysis methods for dealing with non-ideal data, such as the method used to subtract a substantial unexpected noise coupling in the second observing run, which gained 30% extra sensitivity. I developed the method to remove loud artifacts which was used to localize the first binary neutron star despite and which is now used in every LIGO-Virgo search.
Now I am focusing on building sophisticated methods for understanding and removing noise from gravitational-wave detectors, and for improving the computational efficiency and sensitivity of searches for compact binaries. I’m using ideas from signal processing, linear algebra, statistics, differential geometry, and machine learning.