Vicky Kalogera facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Vicky Kalogera
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| Vassiliki Kalogera | |
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| Born | 15 February 1971 (age 54) Serres, Greece
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| Alma mater | University of Thessaloniki University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| Spouse(s) | Frederic A. Rasio, Astrophysicist |
| Awards | National Academy of Sciences Fellow (2018) Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (2018) Hans A. Bethe Prize (2016) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Gravitational waves |
| Institutions | Northwestern University |
| Thesis | Formation of low-mass x-ray binaries (1997) |
| Doctoral advisor | Ronald F. Webbink |
| Notes | |
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Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration & Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) at Northwestern University
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Vassiliki Kalogera is a scientist from Greece who studies space, called an astrophysicist. She teaches at Northwestern University and leads a special center there called CIERA. This center helps different types of scientists work together to explore space.
Dr. Kalogera is a very important member of the LIGO Collaboration. This group made a huge discovery in 2015 when they observed gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are like ripples in space and time, caused by very powerful events in the universe. Dr. Kalogera is a top expert in understanding these waves. She also studies how X-rays come from objects in space and how pairs of super dense stars or black holes crash into each other.
Early Life and Education
Vicky Kalogera was born in 1971 in a city called Serres in Greece. She loved science from a young age. In 1992, she earned her first degree in physics from the University of Thessaloniki.
After that, she moved to the United States for more studies. She went to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for her PhD. In 1997, she finished her PhD in astronomy. She then worked as a special researcher at the Center for Astrophysics before joining Northwestern University in 2001.
Career and Research
Today, Dr. Kalogera is a top professor at Northwestern University. She is the director of CIERA, which stands for the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics. This center brings together scientists from different areas to study the universe.
Her research focuses on many exciting topics in space science. She studies the gravitational waves that LIGO detects. She also creates models to understand objects that give off X-rays. Her work helps predict what causes huge star explosions called supernovae. She also helps with projects like the LSST, which will take amazing pictures of the night sky.
From 2022 to 2025, Dr. Kalogera helped lead the Aspen Center for Physics. This is a place where physicists from all over the world come together to share ideas.
Awards and Honors
Dr. Kalogera has received many important awards for her work. These awards show how much her discoveries have helped us understand the universe.
- National Academy of Sciences Fellow, 2018: She was chosen as a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. This is a very high honor for scientists in America.
- Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, 2018: This award recognized her important work on how compact objects, like black holes and neutron stars, change over time. It also honored her studies of the signals they send out, including gravitational waves.
- Hans A. Bethe Prize, 2016: This prize was given to her for her key discoveries about how binary compact objects create light and gravitational waves. She even predicted that when neutron stars crash, they create short gamma-ray bursts. This prediction was later proven true!
- Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award, 2008: This award from the American Physical Society honors outstanding women physicists.
- Annie Jump Cannon Award, 2002: This award is given to a promising young woman researcher in astronomy.
