Andreas Freise

I am a Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Birmingham. I coordinate a small team of researchers and students, together we find new ways of making the LIGO gravitational wave detectors even more sensitive. In particular, we like to work on the optical systems and the laser interferometers that are at the heart of these instruments.

I am an experimental physicist by title, however, I have always been fascinated by comparing experimental results to the output of numerical models. During my PhD I developed my first numerical modelling software package, and over the years I have tried many fun ways of combining coding with my research. Recently we have founded the not-for-profit company Laser Labs Games CIC to help developing mobile apps for science outreach.

Python has been a natural choice for many research related tasks, and we like to use IPython for engaging new students with the numerical modelling aspects of our work. I am also coordinating the change of programming language from C++ and Matlab to Python in our undergraduate physics courses and am looking forward to the teaching of these new modules.