Delighted to be among the recipients of an European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant, and honoured to be in the company of so many outstanding researchers at University of Amsterdam and from across Europe.

My project “De Tenebris” (“On Darkness”) will explore a new way to detect dark matter – the elusive substance comprising most of the Universe’s mass – by “listening” to ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves. The basic idea is simple: when two black holes spiral together and merge, they send out gravitational waves that we can detect here on Earth. If dark matter is present around those black holes, it can subtly change the shape and timing of those waves.

My team will develop models and computer codes to predict exactly how different types of dark matter would alter a black hole merger signal, and to identify key waveform signatures that reveal dark matter’s nature, preparing the ground for discovery with future space interferometers like European Space Agency – ESA‘s LISA.

I’m deeply grateful to my research group and collaborators at GRAPPA, at the UvA Institute of Physics, and beyond. This achievement would have been impossible without you.

If you’re a postdoc or early-career researcher looking for your next challenge, keep an eye on our openings this Fall—several positions will be posted with applications due at the end of November.