Dr. Campanelli came to RIT in 2007 as the Director of the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation (see related story). She joined the faculty of the School of Mathematical Sciences from the Physics and Astronomy department at the University of Texas at Brownsville, where she served as the associate Director of the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and lead several computing projects (see PhysicsCentral). Born in Switzerland, Campanelli received a 'Laurea' degree in Mathematics from the University of Perugia in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Bern in 1996. In 1998, she was awarded of a Marie-Curie Fellowship to work at the Max-Planck-Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), where she remained until 2001. There, she lead and developed the Lazarus project which provided the first insights into the physics of merging black holes. In 2005, Campanelli and colleagues Carlos Lousto and Yosef Zlochower developed a new powerful numerical technique, known as moving puncture, solving a decade long-standing problem on simulating the merger of black holes in strong field general relativity (see related stories at: APS focus, New Scientist, Astronomy, etc). In 2009, she was chosen to receive a Fellowship of the American Physical Society "for groundbreaking work on numerical simulations of binary black hole space times and for explorations of physical effects such as “super kicks” and spin-driven orbital dynamics." Campanelli has published numerous articles and lectures frequently on her research worldwide. She is also a member of the Ligo Scientific Collaboration and principal investigator in multiple NSF and NASA funded research projects. In addition to her educational and research activities, Campanelli is active in professional service. She currently is the Vice-Chair the Topical Group on Gravitation and an executive member of the Division of Computational Physics of the American Physical Society. She regularly serves on many scientific boards, including review panels for the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and acts as referee of scientific journals.

Don Figer is a technologist and observational astrophysicist with interest in advanced photon detectors, massive stars, massive star clusters and the Galactic Center. He is the author or co-author of more than 175 papers that have been cited 2,800 times. He regularly uses the largest observatories in the world, including Hubble, Keck, Gemini, Spitzer, and Chandra. He is director of the Center for Detectors, where he has led efforts to develop technology for astrophysics, defense and biophotonics.

Figer received his triple-bachelor's in physics, math and astronomy from Northwestern (1989) and a Ph.D. from UCLA (1995).

Joel Kastner is an expert in astronomical imaging with emphasis on young stars and planet formation, evolved stars and planetary nebulae, x-ray imaging and spectroscopy, infrared imaging and spectroscopy, and radio (molecular line) spectroscopy.

He is the author or co-author of more than 50 refereed papers in astronomical literature over the past 10 years. Kastner is a member of proposal review panels for the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation radio astronomy program.

Kastner received his bachlor's in physics from University of Maryland (1981) and his master's degree (1986) and Ph.D. (1990) in astronomy from University of California.

Carlos Lousto is an associate professor in the RIT's School of Mathematical Sciences and co-director of the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation. He holds two Ph. Ds, one in relativistic astrophysics (on accretion disks around black holes and the structure of neutron stars) from the University of La Plata, and one in physics from University of Buenos Aires. Carlos has an extensive research experience which ranges from black hole perturbation theory and numerical relativity to string theory and quantum gravity. He has authored and co-authored more than 100 papers, including several reviews and book chapters. His research is funded by several NSF and NASA grants and supercomputing allocation proposals. Carlos is one of the authors of a breakthrough on binary black hole simulations and the main author in the discovery that supermassive black holes can be ejected from most galaxies at speeds of up to 4000km/s. With Campanelli and Zlochower, he also designed and built the Funes and NewHorizon clusters.

David Merritt received his PhD in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University. He held postdoctoral positions at U. C. Berkeley and at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics before coming to RIT. His fields of interest include galaxy dynamics and evolution, supermassive black holes and computational astrophysics.