Skip to main content

Community & Outreach

Outreach — 2019

December 31, 2019 outreach
IGC celebrated its silver jubilee through an international conference igc@25: The multimessenger universe which was held at Penn State from June 23rd to 27th 2019.
IGC celebrated its silver jubilee through an international conference igc@25: The multimessenger universe which was held at Penn State from June 23rd to 27th 2019. …
Two probable black-hole mergers spotted in first weeks after gravitational-wave detector is updated
June 16, 2019 outreach
Two probable black-hole mergers spotted in first weeks after gravitational-wave detector is updated
Two new probable gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by cataclysmic cosmic events and first predicted by Albert Einstein over 100 …
June 15, 2019 outreach
Loops '19 Conference
Loops’19, the most recent conference in a long tradition of biannual international meetings focused on loop quantum gravity and background independent approaches to quantum gravity …
June 10, 2019 outreach
The Big Bounce, Signs in the CMB?
A Loop Quantum Gravity updateIs there evidence of a cosmic Big Bounce in the sky? Can dark energy be solved by quantum gravity? In our …
June 1, 2019 outreach
Black Holes, Dark Matter & Quantum Gravity, what’s new in Loop Quantum Gravity
Are black holes related to dark matter? Do the observations of black holes by LIGO hint at a signature of quantum gravity ? Can we …
LIGO and Virgo observatories detect neutron star smash-ups
June 1, 2019 outreach
LIGO and Virgo observatories detect neutron star smash-ups
IGC researchers Cody Messick, Ryan Magee and Alexander Pace provide their perspectives.
Abhay Ashtekar Awarded Albert Einstein Prize in Gravitational Physics
April 15, 2019 outreach
Abhay Ashtekar Awarded Albert Einstein Prize in Gravitational Physics
Abhay Ashtekar was awarded the Albert Einstein Prize in Gravitational Physics during the April 2019 Meeting of the American Physical Society held at Denver, Co.

Seminars

IGC seminar series and recent talks.

Fundamental Theory Seminar

Friday · 10:30 - 11:45 PM · 339 Davey / Zoom

Seminars and discussion on classical and quantum gravity as well as cosmology and string theory.

Date Speaker Title Location
Apr 29, 2022 Eric Bellm, University of Washington Preparing for Time-Domain Science with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory 339 Davey Lab, Zoom: https://psu.zoom.us/j/94169688126?pwd=R2tzK2xNQ1VCWFFOblp4Rmo1VVpRUT09&from=addon

HEPAP/CMA Seminar

Tuesday · 1:30 - 2:30 PM · 339 Davey Lab/Zoom

Weekly seminar hosted jointly by the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics and the High Energy Physics Group.

Date Speaker Title Location
Apr 26, 2022 Mariangela Lisanti, Princeton University Galactic Probes of Dark-Sector Physics https://psu.zoom.us/j/93641512423

International Loop Quantum Gravity Seminar

Tuesday · 10:00 - 12:30 PM · via Zoom

(Meets every other week)

No seminars recorded yet.

Primordial Universe and Gravity (PUG) Discussions

Monday · 2:30 - 3:30 PM · via Zoom

Informal discussion of primordial universe and gravity topics.

Date Speaker Title Location
Apr 25, 2022 Victoria Niu Implement Probability Estimator of Astronomical Events in G-wave search https://psu.zoom.us/j/98243446240?pwd=TlMyN3lNU09ZVHYxT2U3OU9CcmdKQT09
Apr 4, 2022 Ish Gupta Using Fisher information matrix for gravitational-wave parameter-estimation Zoom Link: https://psu.zoom.us/j/98243446240?pwd=TlMyN3lNU09ZVHYxT2U3OU9CcmdKQT09

Special Topics

Varying days, · Varying times, · Varying locations.

IGC meetings on special topics

Date Speaker Title Location
Apr 26, 2022 Chad Hanna Test 2
Apr 25, 2022 Chad Hanna Test 1
Feb 17, 2022 Bryce Cousins, Doug Cowen, Becca Ewing, Fe McBride, Kohta Murase, Hugo Solares, Stephanie Wissel AMON Future Directions Focus Sessions 339 Davey (Feb 17, Feb 21), 320 Whitmore (Feb 18)

Organizations

APS-IDEA
APS-IDEA
The Penn State Physics department is a member of the APS Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Alliance (APS-IDEA). APS-IDEA is a new initiative with a mission of empowering and supporting physics …
Conference for Undergrad Women in Physics
Conference for Undergrad Women in Physics
The goal of APS CUWiP is to help undergraduate women continue in physics by providing them with the opportunity to experience a professional conference, information about graduate school and professions …
Physics and Astronomy for Women+
Physics and Astronomy for Women+
PAW+ (Physics and Astronomy for Women+) is a club of undergraduates, grad students, and post-docs dedicated to advancing the status of women, gender minorities, and underrepresented groups in Physics and …
Rainbow Science Network
Rainbow Science Network
The Rainbow Science Network is a list of research groups committed to maintaining an inclusive environment, where faculty members have received training in LGBTQ+ issues.
The Society of Physics Students (SPS)
The Society of Physics Students (SPS)
The Society of Physics Students (SPS) is a club at Penn State dedicated to bringing together those interested in physics. Anyone with any level of knowledge in physics (even none) …
About our wordmark
Monica Rincon Ramirez

The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez while she was a graduate student at the Institute. Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work included general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds; her thesis focused on effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope of research at the IGC. The base represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity — approaches studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle shows galaxies embedded in a smooth surface characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the larger physical scales studied at the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology. The top curves to an extreme representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet, with a binary black hole pair nearby — the high-energy phenomena studied at the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics.