Faculty and Research Fellows

Sarp Akcay Assistant Professor My research interests are in mathematical and computational general relativity, with specific focus on modelling compact binary inspirals and mergers that are detectable by either ground-based or space interferometers. I have done work in the fields gravitational self-force, effective-one body theory, gravitational waveform modelling for both decaHertz and milliHertz regimes, and gravitational wave parameter estimation. I am a member of the LISA Consortium and was previously a member of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration.
Chris Kavanagh Assistant Professor My research focuses on analytic approaches, such as the post-Newtonian / post-Minkowskian approximations and gravitational self-force, to modelling black-hole binaries and their gravitational radiation as sources for gravitational wave detectors. I am also interested in the interplay between methods used for gravitational wave physics and those used for scattering problems in particle physics.
Adrian Ottewill Emeritus Full Professor I have over 30 years Faculty experience at Oxford University and UCD with a long record of research supervision of PhD and postdoctoral students in classical and quantum gravity with particular emphasis on gravitational wave astronomy, quantum field theory and wave propagation in curved space-time. I am a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Royal Astronomical Society and have been a Member of the Royal Irish Academy for over 20 years.
Christiana Pantelidou Assistant Professor and RS–RI URF My research focuses on understanding non-linear phenomena in gravitational physics, including the phenomenon of gravitational turbulence and its potential astrophysical and cosmological ramifications. I am also interested in gravity in AdS and its relation to fluid dynamics through the AdS/CFT correspondence, real-time holography, quasinormal modes, black hole stability, and numerical relativity. I am very enthusiastic about public outreach and about promoting matters of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
Barry Wardell Full Professor My research interests involve the study of black holes, gravitational waves and cosmic strings. I am particularly focused on numerical and perturbation theory approaches to solving Einstein’s equations of General Relativity. I co-lead the Multiscale Self-Force collaboration, am a member of the LISA DDPC, am a founding developer of the Black Hole Perturbation Toolkit, have contributed to the Einstein Toolkit, and am PI on the EMRIWaveforms ERC Advanced Grant.
Niels Warburton Assistant Professor and RS–RI URF My research centres around modelling gravitational wave emission from compact binary systems, with a particular emphasis on using black hole perturbation theory to model small mass-ratio systems. I am an active member of the LISA Consortium where I was the co-chair the Waveform Working Group and a coordinator for the EMRI waveform Working Package from from 2018-2024. I am currently a member of the LISA DDPC and the LISA Consortium Council.
Marc Casals Visiting Professor I am a Research Professor at the University of Leipzig, Germany, and a Visiting Professor at UCD. My research is in General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory in curved spacetimes, with a particular interest in classical and quantum black holes. On the classical side, my work ranges from black hole stability properties to black hole binary inspirals and gravitational waves. On the quantum side, my work covers Hawking radiation, quantum backreaction and higher-dimensional black holes.

Postdoctoral researchers

Susanna Barsanti Postdoc with Barry Wardell My primary interest focuses on modelling gravitational waves emitted by asymmetric binary systems, in particular Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs), both in General Relativity and beyond. I am currently developing modified EMRI waveforms in alternative gravity theories and I am also interested in LISA data analysis with extreme and intermediate mass ratio inspirals.
Mikel Sanchez Garitaonandia Postdoc with Christiana Pantelidou My main interest encompasses out-of-equilibrium physics, black hole dynamics and their relation to strongly coupled quantum field theories through the AdS/CFT correspondence. More specifically, my research focuses on bubble dynamics in first-order phase transitions and their gravitational wave emission, non-linear dynamics of black holes in AdS spacetimes, quasinormal modes and hydrodynamics.
Oliver Long Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow My research focuses on the numerical modelling of unbound binary black hole encounters. To explore these systems I use a range of methods, including numerical relativity for the comparable mass case and self-force techniques from black hole perturbation theory for extreme mass ratios.
Andrew Spiers Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow My research focuses on modelling gravitational waves from black hole binaries and their post-merger ringdown using black hole perturbation theory. I am particularly interested in nonlinear effects, both within general relativity and in alternative theories of gravity. By measuring these effects with next-generation detectors, we will constrain our theory of gravity.
Oleksii Yanchyshen Postdoc with Niels Warburton My work focuses on developing analytical methods for relativistic orbital dynamics. In particular, I develop and apply general relativistic Gaussian perturbation equations to describe the evolution of osculating orbital elements in the Schwarzschild spacetime background, expressed in terms of Weierstrass elliptic functions.

PhD and MSc students

Chris Devitt RI PhD Fellow with Barry Wardell I am working on applying self-force techniques to modified theories of gravity, such as scalar-tensor and vector-tensor theories, with the goal of placing constraints on these theories.
Jakob Neef PhD researcher with Chris Kavanagh My work focuses on weak field expansions of self-force to obtain analytical solutions describing EMRI dynamics. Some of my work is available through the Black Hole Perturbation Toolkit. My PhD is funded by Research Ireland.
Giulio Taiocchi PhD researcher with Christiana Pantelidou I did my bachelor and master in Milan, and I did my master thesis in Lisbon at the Centra Group. I mainly work with asymptotically Anti de Sitter space time, through numerical methods, and I am interested in turbulent behaviours in General Relativity and Fluid Dynamics. My supervisor is Christiana Pantelidou.

Past members

• Cormac Breen – PhD student. Went on to be a lecturer at TU Dublin.
• Brad Cownden - Postdoc. Went on to University of Santiago de Compostela.
• Kevin Cunningham – PhD student. Went on to do a postdoc at the University of Southampton, UK.
• Sam Dolan – Irish Research Council postdoc. Went on to be a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield, UK.
• Leanne Durkan – PhD student. Went on to do a postdoc at University of Texas, Austin, USA and later to industry.
• Anna Heffernan – PhD student and Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow. Went on to do a postdoc at the Advanced Concepts Team of the European Space Agency at ESTEC in the Netherlands, a postdoc at the University of Florida, a postdoc at the University of Guelph, Canada, and a postdoc at the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain.
• Seth Hopper – visiting postdoc. Went on to be a lecturer at Earlham College, USA.
• Kevin Kiely - Phd student. Went on into industry.
• Benjamin Leather – PhD student. Went on to do a postdoc at the Albert Einstein Institute, Germany and then received a Marie Curie Fellowship to work at University of Southampton, UK
• Philip Lynch – PhD Student. Went on to do a postdoc at the Albert Einstein Institute, Germany
• Josh Mathews – PhD student. Went on to do a postdoc at the National University of Singapore
• Patrick Nolan – PhD student. Went on into industry.
• Thomas Osburn – Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor. Returned to the State University of New York at Geneseo, USA.
• Conor O’Toole – PhD student. Went on into industry.
• Gabriel Andres Piovano, Irish Research Council postdoc. Went on to Université libre de Bruxelles.
• Peter Taylor – PhD student and Irish Research Council Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions COFUND postdoctoral fellow. Went on to be a lecturer at Dublin City University.
• Tien Van Truong – MSc student. Went on to do a PhD.
• Jake Williams - PhD student. Went on to work for the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC).
• Vojtěch Witzany – Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow. Went on to be a faculty member at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Charles University in Prague.