Eleonora Polini

Eleonora became interested in the experimental field of gravitational waves during a Summer Research Program at the University of Florida, where she developed a read-out technique for the LISA experiment. Combining her passion for gravitational waves and quantum optics, she participated in the realization of a 1:1 scale prototype of frequency-dependent squeezing at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, in Tokyo for her master thesis project. This technology allows quantum noise reduction in gravitational wave detectors across the entire detection spectrum. During her Ph.D., Eleonora worked on the implementation of this technique in the European gravitational wave detector Virgo. She was also involved in various experimental upgrades of the Virgo detector, including the replacement of the Output Mode Cleaner and the mitigation of scattered light noise. In early 2023, Eleonora joined the MIT LIGO group as a Postdoctoral Associate working with Nergis Mavalvala, Dean of the School of Science, on an ambitious project: building a large fiber interferometer to measure the effect of gravitational redshift on single photon states. Eleonora is also working on developing current gravitational wave detectors as part of the LIGO collaboration.