Alessandra Buonanno has been named a Fellow of the American Physical Society. She is being recognized "for revolutionizing our understanding of quantum optical noise in interferometric gravitational-wave detectors (with Chen), creating the effective-one-body (EOB) approach to 2-body dynamics (with Damour), and leading the creation of template families for searches for gravitational waves from compact binaries."
Founded in 1899, the APS is the world's second largest organization of physicists. Fellows are recognized by their peers for advances made in knowledge, through original research and publications. The total number of newly elected Fellows in any one year cannot exceed one per cent of Society memberships.
Professor Buonanno is a premier theorist in the field of gravitational waves. She joined the University of Maryland in 2005. She is a member of the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics and the Joint Space-Science Institute.