Kipp Cannon

Kipp Cannon
"Current Observational Results from LIGO and Virgo"

Position

Associate professor
University of Tokyo

Profile

113-0033 Tokyo,Bunkyo-ku, Hongo 7-3-1
University of Tokyo,School of Science Bldg. No. 4
RESCEU, Japan

office: +81 3-5841-4169, fax: +81 3-5841-7638
E-mail: kipp@resceu.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp
URL: http://www.resceu.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~kipp
Citizenship: Canadian
First Language: English

Education

1996-2003 Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
  • Thesis titled Collapse-Time Distribution for Large Cosmic Structures.
  • Supervisor Prof. Don Page
  • Degree conferred June, 2004.
1992-1996 Specialized Honours Bachelor of Science in Physics, York University
Toronto, Ontario
  • Degree designated First Class With Distinction for maintaining an average of at least A in all four
    years of study.

Academic Employment

2016-Present Research Centre for the Early Universe, University of Tokyo, Associate Professor
Tokyo, Japan
Institute Director: Prof. Yasushi Suto
Dean of the School of Science: Prof. Hiroo Fukuda
2010-2016 Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics Senior Research Associate
Toronto, Ontario
Institute Director: Prof. Norm Murray
2007-2010 California Institute of Technology Senior Postdoctoral Scholar
Pasadena, California
Supervisor: Prof. Alan Weinstein
2004-2007 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Postdoctoral Researcher
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Supervisors: Prof. Patrick Brady, Prof. Jolien Creighton

Grants

  • CITA Fellow research and travel grant. 2010-2012, CA$12,000 / year.
  • CITA Research Associate research and travel grant. 2013-2015, CA$15,000 / year.
  • Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP110102501) "Real-time signal Processing and Distributed Robotic Telescope Networking for Co-detection of GravitationalWaves and Their Optical Counterparts". 2011-2015, AU$110,000 / year. 9 participants, Prof. Linqing Wen (PI).

Awards

2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics [link], 2016, International.

Professional Experience

  • Member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) since 2004, participating in the analysis of data from the LIGO, GEO600, and Virgo gravitational-wave antennas, searching for evidence of gravitational waves from a variety of sources including cosmic strings, mergers of massive compact objects, supernova, gamma-ray bursts, and neutron stars.
  • March 2008 to June 2010, acted as a representative of Caltech on the LSC Council, the governing body of the LSC.
  • From September 2010, principle investigator and LSC Council representative for the CITA-PI LSC group, a collaboration between the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and the only Canadian group in the LIGO Scienti c Collaboration.
  • In November 2010, co-organized a workshop hosted by CITA on the use of stream-based data analysis techniques in gravitational wave astronomy.
  • Actively participated in the following internal working groups of the LSC:
    • the Burst Working Group charged with the task of detecting or constraining via upper limits gravitational-wave emissions from unmodelled sources;
    • the Compact Binaries Working Group charged with the task of detecting or constraining via upper limits gravitational-wave emissions from coalescing compact binary objects such as black holes and neutron stars;
    • and the Data Analysis Software Working Group charged with the task of overseeing the de nition, development, and deployment of the software infrastructure used within the LSC for datananalysis.
  • Chaired the internal review committee validating the results of two gravitational-wave searches performed
    by Peter Kalmus at Columbia University targeting the detection of unmodelled gravitationalwave
    bursts from soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs). Results published in Physical Review Letters.
  • Member of the internal review committee validating the results of a gravitational-wave search performed
    by Lisa Goggin at Caltech for the ring-down gravitational waves emitted by perturbed black
    holes (for example following a collision with another massive body).
  • Chaired the "sky localization" sub-group within the Compact BinariesWorking Group and, currently,
    co-chair the "binary neutron stars" sub-group.
  • Developed and tuned a data-analysis pipeline to search for evidence of gravitational-wave bursts from
    the core of our galaxy.
  • Collaborated with Prof. Xavier Siemens to complete a search for evidence of gravitational-wave bursts
    from cosmic strings in the LIGO S4 data set.
  • Collaborating with Prof. Xavier Siemens and Dr. Florent Robinet to on a search for gravitationalwave
    bursts from cosmic strings in the LIGO S5 and S6 and Virgo VSR2 and VSR3 data sets.
  • Led the design and development of the LSC's Online Data Analysis System (Onasys), the software
    infrastructure used for low-latency "online" gravitational wave data analysis.
  • I have refereed papers for the Journal of Classical and Quantum Gravity, and Physical Review D, as
    well as refereeing papers within the LSC.

Teaching Experience

  • 2004 University of Alberta Department of Physics Sessional Lecturer
    Edmonton, Alberta
    Supervisor: Prof. Zbigniew Gortel
    • Taught 103 students PHYS244 Advanced Classical Mechanics in the winter term in collaboration
      with Prof. Don Page
  • 1996-2002 University of Alberta Graduate Teaching Assistant
    Edmonton, Alberta
    Supervisors: Prof. Dave Austen, Mr. Alf Keen
    • Instructor in rst- and second-year undergraduate physics laboratory courses.
  • 1996-1997 University of Alberta Faculty of Extension Instructor
    Edmonton, Alberta
    Supervisor: Prof. Walter Archer
    • Taught a Faculty of Extension course in May of 1997 entitled Our View of the Universe (course 6974).

Students

I have worked with the following students.
  • Dr. Saikat Ray-Majumder, as a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee.
  • Dr. Lisa Goggin, as a doctoral student at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
  • Dr. Peter Kalmus, as a doctoral student at Columbia University, New York.
  • Dr. Melissa Frei, as a doctoral student at University of Texas-Austin, Austin.
  • Dr. Leo Singer, a doctoral student at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
  • Mr. J. D. Emberson, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, Toronto.
  • In the summer of 2008, I supervised Ms. Ashley King and co-supervised Mr. Shinkee Chung, NSF
    SURF students at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
  • In the summer of 2009, I co-supervised Mr. Dan Stratman and Ms. Mireia Crispin-Ortuzar, NSF
    SURF students at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
  • In the summer of 2010, I supervised Mr. Andrew Mergl, NSERC undergraduate research assistant
    at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Toronto.
  • In the summer of 2011, I supervised Ms. Lisa Esteves, NSERC undergraduate research assistant at
    the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Toronto.
  • In the summer of 2012, I supervised Mr. Jacob Peoples, NSERC undergraduate research assistant at
    the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Toronto.
  • In the spring of 2014, I supervised Mr. Ruben Pinto, undergraduate research assistant at Ryerson
    University, Toronto.