Christopher is interested in how we can use gravity to probe the properties of astrophysical objects like black holes and neutron stars, and how we can use astronomical observations to learn about the nature of gravitation. He specializes in gravitational-wave astronomy. His research spans gravitational-wave astronomy with the future space-based observatory LISA to observations with the ground-based LIGO and Virgo. As a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, he analyzed the first gravitational-wave detections, and led the analysis of GW170104.
As the former CIERA Board of Visitors Research Professor, Christopher was responsible for facilitating the research program of the CIERA Director. He enjoyed supporting the group’s graduate students as the work on a diverse range of interesting projects related to compact objects, stellar evolution and gravitational astrophysics.
As an undergraduate, Christopher Berry read Natural Science at the University of Cambridge, specializing in Experimental & Theoretical Physics. He continued at Cambridge, at the Institute of Astronomy, for his PhD, where his supervisor was Jonathan Gair. He worked on a range of topics connected to gravity with a particular interest in what we could learn from the space-based gravitational-wave observatory LISA. Following his PhD, in 2013 Christopher moved to the University of Birmingham as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Here, he joined the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and developed expertise in gravitational-wave parameter estimation. He worked on LIGO’s first detections in 2015 and led the analysis of GW170104, and works on analyzing discoveries for LIGO and Virgo’s observing runs.
