Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos

Jackson Henry - Mr. - Graduate Student

Office: 322 Whitmore Laboratory

Address: None

Email: jth58@psu.edu

Phone: +1 814 863 9605

At RIT in undergrad I began work with LIGO under John Whelan. There I focused on characterizing the detecting geometry for LIGO. I later began to work with Richard O’Shaughnessy on the effect of orbital eccentricity on parameter estimation. At Penn State i have been working with Martin Bojowald and James Kennington on a numerical implementation of Causal Dynamical Triangulation. More recently I have begun to work with Sarah Shandera and Unnati Akhouri on the behavior of quantum open systems. I love volunteering for Astrofest most years and have also been collaborating with PAW+ designing new posters highlighting important and lesser known scientists. If you are interested in discussing my current work please reach out over e-mail.

The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez, while she was a graduate student at the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos (IGC). Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work includes specialized topics in general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds. In particular, her thesis work focused on finding effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams, and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope and variety of research at the IGC. The base of the image represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity. These are among the approaches to fundamental questions studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle of the image represents the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology by galaxies embedded in a smooth surface, characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the much larger physical scales studied in cosmology. Finally, at the top, the surface curves to an extreme, representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet. These elements depict an active galactic nucleus, inspired by Centaurus A. Just to the right, a pair of black holes approaches merger. This top portion of the wordmark represents the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics, which specializes in the study of high-energy phenomena in the universe.

About our wordmark