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School of Mathematical Sciences

Dr Hong Qi

Lecturer in Mathematical Sciences

Email: hong.qi@qmul.ac.uk
Room Number: MB-326
Website: www.hongqi.space
Office Hours: Spring 2024: Tuesday 1-2pm in the School Social Hub MB-B11.

Profile

I am an astrophysicist, focusing on gravitational wave detection and analysis within the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) since late 2013 and been a full LSC member since 2015. Gravitational waves are the last prediction of Einstein's theory of General Relativity, portraying as "ripples" in spacetime generated by accelerated matter. On September 14, 2015, for the first time in human history, the LSC directly detected a gravitational wave from the collision of two black holes, using a pair of 4-km long LIGO detectors. This event was named GW150914, and its detection won three LSC leaders the Nobel Prize of Physics in 2017. By April 2020, the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA collaborations had collaboratively detected 90 gravitational waves.

Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) was admitted to the LSC in February 2022, initiated by Dr. Tessa Baker. I joined QMUL in Jan 2023 as a Lecturer in the School of Mathematical Sciences and became the lead of QMUL's LSC Group in Oct 2023. I am interested in all aspects of gravitational wave astronomy and multimessenger astrophysics. Particularly, my current research focuses on developing novel data analysis methods to accelerate gravitational wave detection and parameter estimation. 

I started my position as a Lecturer (equivalent to Assistant Professor in the US system) at Queen Mary in Jan 2023. Before that, I was a Senior Postdoc from March to December 2022 working on detector characterization with Prof. Gaby Gonzalez at Louisiana State University, which is 40 minutes drive from the LIGO Livingston detector site. From Sep 2018 to Mar 2022, I worked as a Research Associate at Cardiff University's Gravity Exploration Institute, focusing on accelerating gravitational wave inference with Dr. Vivien Raymond and dark matter direct search with Prof. Patrick Sutton and Prof. Hartmut Grote. Prior to that, for working on gravitational wave cosmology as well as detection and inference software in the Leonard E Parker Center for Gravitation, Cosmology, and Astrophysics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I received my PhD degree in Physics under the supervision of Prof. Patrick Brady in May 2018.  

 

Teaching

Spring 2024: SAS for Business Intelligence

Research

Publications

My research publications can be found here: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/public-libraries/3FaeJR92QEaLL1IqItCOsQ.

Supervision

MSc students with a background in astronomy, physics, math, and computer science are welcome to apply for my PhD programs. Women and other underrepresented minorities are particularly encouraged. 

Currently, I have two PhD studentships available for application until Jan 31, 2024, with a start date of September 2024. For an application to be considered, it must be made to the School of Mathematical Sciences. A formal application can be started and submitted here https://www.qmul.ac.uk/maths/postgraduate/postgraduate-research/application-process/ by selecting one of the start time and mode of attendance at the bottom of the page under ‘Apply online’. Alternatively, you can find the details and instructions linked in the project description pages below.

1. Dark matter direct search with gravitational wave detectors:  

https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/search-for-dark-matter-with-gravitational-wave-detectors/?p164304 

or here

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/maths/postgraduate/postgraduate-research/phd-projects/current-phd-projects/search-for-dark-matter-with-gravitational-wave-detectors/#d.en.994822.

2. Innovative methods for gravitational wave parameter estimation:            

https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/innovative-methods-for-gravitational-wave-parameter-estimation/?p167473 

or here

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/maths/postgraduate/postgraduate-research/phd-projects/current-phd-projects/innovative-methods-for-gravitational-wave-parameter-estimation/.

Grants

Recent grants (the ones less than £5,000 are not listed):

  • PI, 2023-2024 Emmy Noether Fellowship, awarded by London Mathematical Society in June 2023.
  • PI, 2023 STFC Impact Accelerator Award on Exploring Quantum Computing for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, £27k, awarded in November 2022.
  • Co-I, 2021-2024 Compute Canada grant on enabling gravitational wave discoveries in O4, with PI Dr. Jess McIver, $1.2M/year.
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