The young researchers Francesco Di Renzo, University of Pisa and INFN Pisa Division, Eleonora Polini, of the LAPP/IN2P3 laboratory of the French CNRS, and Marco Vardaro, University of Amsterdam and the Netherlands’ National Institute for Subatomic Physics (NIKHEF), are the winners of the second edition of the Virgo Award. The Virgo international collaboration grants this award each year to young scientists from the collaboration for their significant contribution to the experiment's operations and to the results of the Virgo collaboration. The jury that selected the winners consists of prominent scientists in the field of gravitational-wave physics. In particular, the 2022 Virgo Award was awarded, according to the jury’s reasoning, to Francesco Di Renzo “for his strong commitment to detector characterisation and ‘noise hunting’”, to Eleonora Polini “for sustained contributions to optical benches and ‘squeezing’ activities”, and to Marco Vardaro “for contributing to the implementation of ‘frequency dependent squeezing’ and ‘commissioning’ activities”.
The awards ceremony took place on 7 July at the EGO (European Gravitational Observatory) during Virgo Week, a quarterly discussion meeting for the whole international collaboration which was held this week