Luisa T. Buchman

Dr. Luisa T. Buchman is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Washington Bothell, affiliated with the Gravitational Wave Astronomy group and the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) collaboration via Caltech. Her work focuses on simulating gravitational wave signals from binary black hole mergers using numerical relativity.

• Ph.D. in Astronomy from University of Washington Seattle (2003)
• M.S. in Physics and M.S. in Astronomy from University of Washington Seattle

Dr. Buchman’s research bridges mathematical modeling and high-performance computing to simulate spacetime distortions from black hole collisions. She contributes to LIGO’s gravitational wave detection efforts through waveform generation and boundary condition optimizations.

Her scientific contributions include developing absorbing boundary conditions for the SpEC code and pioneering simulations on hyperboloidal slices to improve waveform accuracy. She has also mentored students in relativity and computational astrophysics, including high school mentees Colin Rice and Griffin Nicoll (2009), and University of Washington students Tim Kostersitz and Andrew Evans (2020-2021).

• National Research Council Research Associate award at Jet Propulsion Laboratory