Slawomir Gras

Slawomir graduated from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland where he received his Bachelor’s degree in Physics. He obtained his Master’s degree in Astronomy from Porto University in Portugal on work related to observational cosmology. He worked on gravitational lensing at European Southern Observatory.

Salwomir decided to dive deeper into experimental gravity and joined the Gravitational Wave Group at University of Western Australia where he received his PhD. During postgraduate studies he was involved in simulation of opto-acoustic interaction in advanced gravitational wave detectors. Such interactions can lead to undesired effect called parametric instabilities and cause a malfunction of the future detectors.

At MIT, Slawomir is involved in modeling and designing devices to control parametric instabilities. Such devices will reduce acoustic mode Q-factors of the test masses at broad frequency range without degeneration of thermal noise performance of the detector.