Artists impression of a black holes with light blue matter creating rings around it.

Shanika Galaudage

Hi, I'm Shanika! I'm a postdoctoral researcher at the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (Lagrange laboratory) in Nice, France. I study pairs of the most extreme objects in the universe (e.g. black holes and neutron stars) using gravitational waves to understand how these systems lived their lives. I am a member of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration as part of the Virgo ARTEMIS group.

More about me here.

Gravitational waves + Compact binaries

The field of gravitational-wave astronomy is providing us with a wealth of information about the most extreme objects in the Universe. Since the first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015, LIGO and Virgo now have a catalogue of ~100 compact binary mergers. Now we are in the midst of the fourth observing run (#O4IsHere)! With the growing number of gravitational-wave events, we are starting to uncover the population properties of these compact binaries.

Graphic of various compact binaries formation pathways.

My research involves using gravitational waves to study populations of compact binaries to probe the stellar evolution processes and formation mechanisms of these systems.

Curriculum Vitae

Detailed CV can be found here, updated May 2023.

Education

2019-23

PhD | Monash University
Thesis: Population properties of black holes and neutron stars: the emerging picture from gravitational-wave astronomy
Supervisors: Eric Thrane and Ilya Mandel

2015-18

Bachelor of Science Advanced - Research (Honours) | Monash University
Thesis: Searching for X-ray pulsations from gravitational-wave candidates - 1st class honours
Supervisors: Duncan Galloway and Karl Wette

Publications

Below is a list of some key publications. I am an author on numerous publications as part of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration.

LVK Collaboration (incl. Galaudage, S.,) The population of merging compact binaries inferred using gravitational waves through GWTC-3 (2023) PRX 13, 011048

Galaudage, S., Talbot, C., Nagar, T., Jain, D., Thrane, E. and Mandel, I., Building better spin models for merging BBH: Evidence for non-spinning and rapidly spinning nearly aligned sub-populations, (2021) ApJL 921, L15

LVK Collaboration (incl. Galaudage, S.,) Population properties of compact objects from the second LIGO-Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (2021) ApJL 913 L7

Galaudage, S., Adamcewicz, C., Zhu, X.-J., Stevenson, S. and Thrane, E., Heavy double neutron stars: birth, mid-life and death, (2021) ApJL 909 L19

Galaudage, S., Talbot, C. and Thrane, E., Gravitational-wave inference in the catalog era: evolving priors and marginal events, (2020) PRD 102 083026

Find my full list of publications here.

Conferences + Presentations

Here is a highlight reel of my scientific presentations. An extended list is available in my CV.

Image of a scientific slide and illustrations and plots.

GWPAW | OzGrav

Attended GWPAW and presented a poster about my research on the spins of merging BBH. Received the people's choice prize for best poster!

Title slide of a presentation that has the presentation title and an image of a merging pair of black holes in the background.

Nuclear burning in Massive Stars Workshop | YITP + OzGrav

Invited to give a talk on the LIGO-Virgo observations of gravitational waves and the emerging picture of the binary black hole population.

Graphic with a profile image of a woman on the left with their name, Shanika Galaudage, below it and Astro3D logo on the top right with text below that reads, ECR Astronomers in Australia Seminar series. The background in a purple and pink space image with lots of stars.

ECR Seminar Series | Astro3D

A seminar series showcasing Australia's Early Career Researchers to international audience. Title: "Population properties of binary black holes: Results from LIGO/Virgo O3a"

Outreach

A few of my outreach activities are listed below, ranging from podcasts to workshops! For an extended list of my outreach efforts, see my CV.

Graphic of two black holes merging with text that reads, Where do stars go to die?

Public talk | ASV

Gave a presentation on gravitational waves to a general audience as part of the Astronomical Society of Victoria's AstroTalk series.

Graphic with image of Shanika on the left in the foreground and an image of merging black holes in the background.

Podcast | Astrophiz

Invited to have a chat with Brendan O'Brien on his AstroPhiz podcast. Chatted about gravitational-wave population inference studies and my journey as a research so far!

Image of a classroom setting with Shanika in the front of a class of students making an L shape with their arms.

MySci program | OzGrav + Monash Uni

Volunteered for the MySci program. I created and conducted a workshop for year 11/12 students on gravitational waves!