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Lousto, Carlos O.
RIT Distinguished Professor
Professor of Mathematical Sciences (SMS)
Program Faculty - PhD Program in Astrophysical Sciences and Technology (AST)
Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS)

Education

  • Ph.D. in Astronomy
    University of La Plata
  • Ph.D. in Physics
    University of Buenos Aires

Background

Carlos Lousto is a professor in the RIT's School of Mathematical Sciences and co-director of the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation. He holds two PhDs, one in Astronomy (studying accretion disks around black holes and the structure of neutron stars) from the University of La Plata, and one in Physics from University of Buenos Aires (on Quantum Field Theory in curved spacetimes).

Carlos has an extensive research experience which ranges from black hole perturbation theory and numerical relativity to string theory and quantum gravity. He has authored and co-authored over 130 papers, including several reviews and book chapters. His research is funded by NSF and NASA grants and supercomputing allocations in national labs.

Carlos is a key author of the breakthrough on binary black hole simulations and his research discovered that supermassive black holes can be ejected from most galaxies at speeds of up to 5000km/s. He recently performed challenging simulations of small mass ratio black hole binaries up to 100:1 and at separations up to 100M and for flip-flopping black holes. Carlos has also designed the Funes (UTB), Newhorizons, and BlueSky (RIT) supercomputer clusters to perform binary black hole simulations.

In 2012 Carlos Lousto was distinguished as an American Physical Society Fellow "for his important contributions at the interface between perturbation theory and numerical relativity and in understanding how to simulate binary black holes".

2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics "For the observation of gravitational waves, opening new horizons in astronomy and physics"

2019 APS E.A.Bouchet award "For contributions to both numerical relativity, conducive to the solution of the binary black hole problem, and the understanding of the first detection of gravitational waves and service to the Hispanic scientific community, including the establishment of the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2003."

2023 RIT Distinguished Professor "The Distinguished Professor designation is the highest academic title at RIT and is given to faculty who have exhibited a record of sustained excellence over the course of their careers."