Michał Bejger

Michał Bejger is a professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center (CAMK) in Warsaw and at the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Ferrara.

He obtained his PhD in astrophysics at CAMK in 2005. His postdoctoral fellowship (Marie Curie Fellowship) took place at the Paris Observatory (2006 - 2007) and the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center (2007 - 2008, Marie Curie Reintegration Grant), and a few years later he received his habilitation degree (2013). In 2018 - 2019, he was employed at AstroParticule et Cosmologie (APC; CNRS, Université Paris Cité) in the French group of the Virgo collaboration, whose research was devoted to astrophysics and gravitational wave data analysis and machine learning problems. Since 2021, he has been employed at INFN Ferrara.

Since 2010, he has been involved in projects related to the detection and interpretation of gravitational wave data, as well as the construction of the LIGO - Virgo - KAGRA detectors network, where he is co-chair of one of four working groups analyzing continuous waves data. He is also involved in the work of the design and research team for the construction of the Einstein Telescope, where he is the coordinator of the scientific council (Einstein Telescope Observing Science Board), in a working group studying the configurations of future detectors, and data analysis tools.

List of publications in NASA ADS service and on the "home page".

M. Bejger's group currently includes doctoral students Sudhagar Suyamprakasam, Anirudh Nemmani, Matteo Scialpi, Valeria Carvalho, and PhDs: Sreekanth Harikumar, Przemysław Figura, and Paweł Ciecieląg. Previous collaborators are: dr Magdalena Sieniawska, dr Filip Morawski, dr Jonas P. Pereira.

Research interests

• equation of state of very dense matter,
• physics of compact objects – neutron stars and black holes,
• numerical methods in General Relativity,
• detection of gravitational waves,
• applications of machine learning in relativistic astrophysics.

Current/recent projects:

• 2023/WK/13 (annex 2024/WK/03), grant from the Ministry of Education and Science (currently: Ministry of Science and Higher Education) as part of the program “Support for the participation of Polish research teams in international research infrastructure projects” entitled " Virgo-PL: Polish participation in the Virgo gravitational wave observatory," role: node PI (CAMK), PI: Andrzej Królak, 2024 - 2026
• 2023/49/B/ST9/02777, OPUS NCN grant “Science with Gravitational Waves in the Era of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Discoveries,” role: contractor, node manager (CAMK), manager: Tomasz Bulik, 03/01/2024 - 03/01/2028
• 2021/43/B/ST9/01714, OPUS NCN grant, “The calm before the storm: modifications to the gravitational wave analysis toolkit in the face of future challenges,” role: PI, 10/01/2022 - 09/30/2025
• 2016/22/E/ST9/00037, SONATA BIS NCN grant, “Transient gravitational wave sources associated with neutron stars: models and data analysis,” role: PI, May 18, 2017 - May 17, 2023.

Awards / Honors

• Wojciech Rubinowicz Science Prize from Polish Physical Society for the discovery of gravitational waves (2016),
• Gruber Cosmology Prize, Gruber Prize foundation, for the discovery of gravitational waves (2016),
• Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the authors of the first direct detection of gravitational waves (2016),
• Nicolaus Copernicus Medal of the Polish Academy of Sciences (for the members of the Virgo-POLGRAW team) (2016).

Outreach activities

• editor of the Polish-language magazine Delta,
• lectures on gravitational waves and related topics (including for Astronarium, Delta lecture marathons, Radio Naukowe, the Pulsar project, and much more, which you can read about here and on YouTube.

Related websites

• POLGRAW,
• profile in the Polish Science database.