Multi-messenger Astronomy

Researching a new way of understanding the universe, resolving longstanding astronomical mysteries, and even questions about the human existence.

Research Centers

Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation

Advances knowledge and discovery at the frontiers of relativistic astrophysics, gravitational physics, and cosmology, while pursuing new exciting research directions, in connection with new experiments and observations.

Learn more about the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation

Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics

Fosters the utilization and advancement of cutting-edge techniques in multiwavelength astrophysics by RIT faculty, research staff, and students, so as to improve human understanding of the origin and fate of the universe and its constituents.

Learn more about the Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics

RIT Observatory

Established to promote the undergraduate teaching and research programs in astronomy. The Observatory, on the south-eastern corner of the RIT campus, features two computer-controlled telescopes and a host of portable ones.

Learn more about the RIT Observatory

Key Collaborations

Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)

The National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a Nobel Prize-winning project that hunts for gravitational waves. LIGO made history with the first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015. RIT’s CCRG has a large and active group of about 18 faculty, students and postdoctoral researchers involved in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

Learn more about RIT's collaboration with LIGO

North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitation Waves (NANOGrav)

RIT’s CCRG and Insituto Argentino de Radioastronomía (IAR) began systematic pulsar timing studies in 2019. RIT and IAR’s observations will contribute to the larger efforts of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitation Waves (NANOGrav), a collaboration of scientists working to detect and study the impact of low frequency gravitational waves passing between the pulsars and the Earth. Using pulsar timing observations, the NANOGrav collaboration is striving to discover a supermassive black hole by 2022.

Learn more about NANOGrav

Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)

RIT is part of the LSST Corporation, a group of nearly 40 U.S. and Chilean institutional members focused on preparing the scientific community to use the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which will conduct the most ambitious all-sky survey of the universe to date. As a part of the LSST Corporation, RIT is among a science community that includes many of the world’s leading astrophysicists, cosmologists and particle physicists.

Learn more about the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

Key Faculty and Staff

Manuela Campanelli
Distinguished Professor of Astrophysics
School of Mathematics and Statistics
Jeyhan Kartaltepe
Associate Professor
School of Physics and Astronomy
Michael Richmond
Professor
School of Physics and Astronomy
Carlos Lousto
Professor
School of Mathematics and Statistics
John Whelan
Professor
School of Mathematics and Statistics
Richard O'Shaughnessy
Associate Professor
School of Mathematics and Statistics
Nathaniel Barlow
Associate Professor
School of Mathematics and Statistics
Hans-Peter Bischof
Professor
Department of Computer Science
Joshua Faber
School Head
School of Mathematics and Statistics
Michael Lam
Research Assistant Professor
School of Physics and Astronomy
Jason Nordhaus
Associate Professor
Department of Science and Mathematics
Linwei Wang
Professor
Department of Computing and Information Sciences Ph.D.
Steven Weinstein
Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
Yosef Zlochower
Professor
School of Mathematics and Statistics
Joel Kastner
Professor
Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science

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