Bruce Allen (physicist)

Bruce Allen (born May 11, 1959) is an American physicist and director of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover Germany and leader of the Einstein@Home project for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. He is also a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and the initiator / project leader of smartmontools hard disk utility.

He has done research work on models of the very early universe (inflationary cosmology, cosmic strings). Allen currently leads a research group working on the detection of gravitational waves. In this role, he was one of the first scientists to become aware of the initial detection of GW150914 at LIGO, in September 2015. Allen's research work has been funded by the US National Science Foundation since 1987.

Education and positions

 * 1976 Graduated from Wayland High School, Wayland, Massachusetts, US (Allen belonged to the class of 1977, but graduated a year early with the class of 1976).
 * 1980 BS in physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (advisor: Rainer Weiss)
 * 1984 PhD in gravitation and cosmology, University of Cambridge, England (advisor: Stephen Hawking)
 * 1983–1985 Postdoctoral fellow, University of California Santa Barbara (Physics Department, advisors James Hartle and Gary Horowitz)
 * 1985–1986 Postdoctoral fellow, Tufts University (physics department, advisors Alex Vilenkin and Larry Ford)
 * 1986–1987 Chercheur Associé, Observatoire de Paris – Meudon, France (advisors Brandon Carter and Thibault Damour)
 * 1987–1989 Research assistant professor, Tufts University
 * 1989–1992 Assistant professor of physics, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
 * 1992–1997 Associate professor of physics, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
 * 1997–2007 Professor of physics, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
 * 2007–present Adjunct llProfessor of physics, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
 * 2007–present Director, department of observational relativity and cosmology, Albert Einstein Institute, Hannover, Germany
 * 2008–present Honorary professor of physics, Leibniz University Hannover

Visiting appointments

 * 1994    Six months, Isaac Newton Mathematical Institute, Cambridge, England
 * 1995    Six months, Caltech Relativity Group
 * 1997    One year, Caltech LIGO Project
 * 1999    Six months, Caltech LIGO Project
 * 2000–2005 Few months/year, Albert Einstein Institute, Potsdam, Germany

Awards

 * 1980 Phi Beta Kappa, MIT
 * 1980–85 NSF Graduate Fellowship (declined)
 * 1980–82 Churchill Scholarship (declined)
 * 1980–82 Marshall Scholar, University of Cambridge
 * 1981 Knight Prize, University of Cambridge
 * 1990 First Prize, Gravity Research Foundation
 * 1997 University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Graduate School Research Award
 * 2002–03 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
 * 2004 Elected Fellow, Institute of Physics (UK)
 * 2005 Elected Fellow, American Physical Society
 * 2016 Lower Saxony State Prize 2016 (shared with Buonanno and Danzmann)
 * 2016 Gruber Cosmology Prize (as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration)
 * 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration)
 * 2017 Einstein Medal (as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration)
 * 2017 Princess of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research (as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration)