Rate My Professor Neil Cornish

Cornish's research specializes in gravitational wave astronomy, focusing on binary black hole mergers, neutron star mergers, LIGO observations, and tests of general relativity. His work has profoundly impacted the field, with key publications including GWTC-1: a gravitational-wave transient catalog of compact binary mergers observed by LIGO and Virgo during the first and second observing runs (Physical Review X, 2019), Gravitational waves and gamma-rays from a binary neutron star merger: GW170817 and GRB 170817A (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2017), GW170817: Measurements of neutron star radii and equation of state (Physical Review Letters, 2018), GW170104: observation of a 50-solar-mass binary black hole coalescence at redshift 0.2 (Physical Review Letters, 2017), and GW150914: Implications for the stochastic gravitational-wave background from binary black holes (Physical Review Letters, 2016). These papers have garnered thousands of citations each. Among his honors are the Montana University System Regents Professor title in 2018, American Physical Society Outstanding Referee in 2021, the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics as part of the LIGO team, and the College of Letters & Science Dean's Award for Meritorious Research and Creativity. His leadership in gravitational physics has advanced MSU's role in international collaborations like LIGO and future observatories.