Michiana Adventist Forum: Tiffany Summerscales

The Michiana Adventist Forum presents "What Can We Learn from Gravity Waves?" with Tiffany Summerscales, associate professor of physics at Andrews University and member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration. Her presentation will take place Sabbath, August 27, 2016, at 3:30 p.m. in Garber Auditorium of Chan Shun Hall.

About the Subject

On September 14, 2015, the LIGO detectors measured gravitational waves for the first time coming from a pair of merging black holes. Just a few months later, a second signal was measured. In this talk we will explore some questions that these discoveries raise, such as: what are gravitational waves and what do they teach us about the universe we live in?

About the Speaker

Originally from New Hampshire, Summerscales attended Andrews University and graduated in 1999 with a BS in mathematics and physics. She then went to graduate school at Penn State University and received a PhD in physics in 2006. While there, she worked with LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) which seeks to measure gravitational waves. She is an associate professor of physics at Andrews University, where she joined the faculty in 2006.  She is married to Rodney Summerscales, who teaches in the Andrews University Department of Engineering & Computer Science. She enjoys biking, kayaking, hiking, knitting and camping.