Biography

I am an Associate Professor of Physics at Kenyon College.  My research interests are in gravitational-wave astrophysics and astronomy.  Most recently, my research time has been focused on calibration of the LIGO detectors and using machine learning algorithms to improve the quality of LIGO data.  More information about my research program and current student projects can be found in the "Research" section of this site.  I teach a variety of classes at Kenyon.  Below I have linked the syllabi for the courses I have taught in my time at Kenyon since the Spring 2023 semester.  For more information about me please see my CV.

Recent Courses Taught

Fall 2024

PHYS 131 - Introduction to Experimental Physics I

This is a laboratory course that compliments our introductory physics course geared towards pre-health profession majors.

PHYS 140 - Classical Physics

This course is designed for first-year students who are considering a physics major or minor.  The course teaches classical principles in a standard first-semester physics curriculum, such as kinematics, dynamics, and energy.

Spring 2024

PHYS 270 - Introduction to Computational Physics

This course is a one-semester introduction to ideas and techniques of computational physics.  This semester, I team-taught the course with Prof. Les Wade.

PHYS 345 - Astrophysics and Particles 

This is a course for junior and senior physics majors that introduced students to the theory of general relativity and some of its implications, such as black holes and gravitational waves.  This course was team-taught with Prof. Les Wade.

Fall 2023

PHYS 131 - Introduction to Experimental Physics I

This is a laboratory course that compliments our introductory physics course geared towards pre-health profession majors.

PHYS 141 - First-year Seminar in Physics

The first-year seminar in physics course is designed for all first-year, first-semester students interested in a physics major.  This course explores topics of the professor's choosing and is meant to engage students in current research questions.  I team-taught this course with Prof. Les Wade, and we designed a course taught students about the ways we observe the universe.

Spring 2023

PHYS 105 - Frontiers of Gravity

This is a course designed for students who do not intend to be physics majors but are interested in learning some physics.  This course takes a topical focus, exploring three big topics in the area of gravitational physics today.

PHYS 270 - Introduction to Computational Physics

This course is a one-semester introduction to ideas and techniques of computational physics. 

Recent Publications

Seminal and Detection Publications

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. "Observation of Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 2.5–4.5 Msun Compact Object and a Neutron Star." ApJL 970 L34 (2024).

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: R. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. "GWTC-2.1: Deep extended catalog of compact binary coalescences observed by LIGO and Virgo during the first half of the third observing run." Phys. Rev. D 109, 022001 (2024).

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: R. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. "GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the Second Part of the Third Observing Run." Phys. Rev. X 13, 041039 (2023).**

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: R. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. "Observation of Gravitational Waves from Two Neutron Star–Black Hole Coalescences." ApJL 915 L5 (2021).

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: R. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al.  "GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First Half of the Third Observing Run." Phys. Rev. X 11, 021053 (2021).

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. “GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of 150 Solar Masses.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 101102 (2020). 

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. “GW190814: Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 23 Solar Mass Black Hole with a 2.6 Solar Mass Compact Object.” Astrophys. J. Lett. 896, L44 (2020). 

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. “GW190412: Observation of a Binary-Black-Hole Coalescence with Asymmetric Masses.” Phys. Rev. D 102, 043015 

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. “GW190425: Observation of a Compact Binary Coalescence with Total Mass 3.4M⊙.” Astrophysical Journal Letters 892 (2020) L3. 

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. “GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs.” Phys. Rev. X 9, 031040 (2019). 

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. “GW170608: Observation of a 19 Solar-mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence.” The Astrophysical Journal Letters Volume 851, Issue 2, article id. L35, 11 pp. (2017). 

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. “GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 119 (2017) 161101. 

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. “GW170814: A Three-Detector Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Coalescence.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 119 (2017) 141101. 

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade, et al. “GW170104: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift 0.2.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 118 (2017) 221101. 

•  The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade , et al. “Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run.” Phys. Rev. X 6 (2016) 041015.

•  The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade , et al. “GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 (2016) 241103.

•  The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade , et al. “Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger.” Phys. Rev. Lett 116 (2016) 061102.*

*The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Rai Weiss, Barry Barish, and Kip Thorne for the work reported in this paper. 

**Served in lead role on collaboration paper writing team.

Short-Author List Publications and Primary Contributor Publications

• S. Schmidt, ..., M. Wade, et al. "Searching for gravitational-wave signals from precessing black hole binaries with the GstLAL pipeline." Phys. Rev. D 110, 023038

• S. Schmidt, ..., M. Wade, et al. "Searching for asymmetric and heavily precessing Binary Black Holes in the gravitational wave data from the LIGO and Virgo third Observing Run." Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 201401 (2024).

• C. Hanna, ..., M. Wade, et al. "Template bank for sub solar mass compact binary mergers in the fourth observing run of Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA." Phys. Rev. D 109, 044066 (2024).

• M. Wade, A.D. Viets, M. Stover (Kenyon College ’20), Theresa Chmiel (Kenyon College ’17).  “Improving LIGO calibration accuracy by using time-dependent filters to compensate for temporal variations."  Class. Quantum Grav. 40 035001 (2023)

• A. Ray, ..., M. Wade, et al. "When to Point Your Telescopes: Gravitational Wave Trigger Classification for Real-Time Multi-Messenger Followup Observations." Preprint: arXiv:2306.07190 (2023).

• L. Tsukada, ..., M. Wade, et al. "Improved ranking statistics of the GstLAL inspiral search for compact binary coalescences." Phys. Rev. D 108, 043004 (2023).

• B. Ewing, ..., M. Wade, et al. "Performance of the low-latency GstLAL inspiral search towards LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA's fourth observing run." Phys. Rev. D 109, 042008 (2023)

• C. Hanna, ..., M. Wade, et al. "Metric Assisted Stochastic Sampling (MASS) search for gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers." Phys. Rev. D 106, 084033 (2022).

• R. Magee, ..., M. Wade, et al. "First Demonstration of Early Warning Gravitational-wave Alerts." ApJL 910 L21 (2021).

• L. Sun, E. Goetz, J. S. Kissel, J. Betzwieser, S. Karki, A. Viets, M. Wade, D. Bhattacharjee, V. Bossilkov, P. B. Covas, L. E. H. Datrier, R. Gray, S. Kandhasamy, Y. K. Lecoeuche, G. Mendell, T. Mistry, E. Payne, R. L. Savage, A. J. Weinstein, S. Aston, A. Buikema, C. Cahillane, J. C. Driggers, S. E. Dwyer, R. Kumar, A. Urban. “Characterization of systematic error in Advanced LIGO calibration.” Accepted by Classical Quantum Gravity, 2020 Preprint arXiv:2005.02531 

• S. Sachdev, S. Caudill, H. Fong, R. K. L. Lo, C. Messick, D. Mukherjee, R. Magee, L. Tsukada, K. Blackburn, P. Brady, P. Brockill, K. Cannon, S. J. Chamberlin, D. Chatterjee, J. D. E. Creighton, P. Godwin, A. Gupta, C. Hanna, S. Kapadia, R. N. Lang, T. G. F. Li, D. Meacher, A. Pace, S. Privitera, L. Sadeghian, L. Wade, M. Wade, A. Weinstein, S. L. Xiao. “The GstLAL Search Analysis Methods for Compact Binary Mergers in Advanced LIGO’s Second and Advanced Virgo’s First Observing Runs”. 2019 Preprint arXiv:1901.08580. 

• R. Magee, A.-S. Deutsch, P. McClincy, C. Hanna, C. Horst, D. Meacher, C. Messick, S. Shandera, M. Wade. “Methods for the detection of gravitational waves from sub-solar mass ultracompact binaries”. 2018 Phys. Rev. D 98, 103024. 

• D. Mukherjee, S. Caudill, R. Magee, C. Messick, S. Privitera, S. Sachdev, K. Blackburn, P. Brady, P. Brockill, K. Cannon, S. J. Chamberlin, D. Chatterjee, J. D. E. Creighton, H. Fong, P. Godwin, C. Hanna, S. Kapadia, R. N. Lang, T. G. F. Li, R. K. L. Lo, D. Meacher, A. Pace, L. Sadeghian, L. Tsukada, L. Wade, M. Wade, A. Weinstein, L. Xian. “The GstLAL template bank for spinning compact binary mergers in the second observation run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo”. 2018 Preprint arXiv:1812.05121. 

• A. Viets, M. Wade, A. Urban, S. Kandhasamy, J. Betzwiser, D. Brown, J. Burguet-Castell, C. Cahillane, E. Goetz, E. Hall, K. Izumi, S. Karki, J. Kissel, G. Mendell, R. Savage, X. Siemens, D. Tuyenbayev, A. Weinstein. “Reconstructing the calibrated strain signal in the Advanced LIGO detectors”. 2018 Classical and Quantum Gravity 35 095015. 

•  C. Cahillane, J. Betzwiser, D. Brown, E. Goetz, E. D. Hall, K. Izumi, S. Kandhasamy, S. Karki, J. S. Kissel, G. Mendell, R. L. Savage, D. Tuyenbayev, A. Urban, A. Viets, M. Wade , A. J. Weinstein. “Calibration Uncertainty for Advanced LIGO’s First and Second Observing Runs.” Submitted to Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics.

•  The LIGO Scientific Collaboration: B.P. Abbott, ... , M. Wade , et al. “Calibration of the Advanced LIGO detectors for the discovery of the binary black hole merger GW150914.” Phys. Rev. D 95 (2017) 062003.

•  C. Messick, K. Blackburn, P. Brady, P. Brockill, K. Cannon, R. Cariou, S. Caudill, S. J. Chamberlin, J. D. E. Creighton, R. Everett, C. Hanna, D. Keppel, R. N. Lang, T. G. F. Li, D. Meacher, A. Nielsen, C. Pankow, S. Privitera, H. Qi, S. Sachdev, L. Sadeghian, L. Singer, E. G. Thomas, L. Wade, M. Wade , A. Weinstein, K. Wiesner. “Analysis Framework for the Prompt Discovery of Compact Binary Mergers in Gravitational-wave Data.” Phys. Rev. D 95 (2017) 042001.

•  D. Tuyenbayev, S. Karki, J. Betzwieser, C. Cahillane, E. Goetz, K. Izumi, S. Kandhasamy, J. S. Kissel, G. Mendell, M. Wade , A. J. Weinstein, R. L. Savage. “Improving LIGO calibration accuracy by tracking and compensating for slow temporal variations.” Class. Quantum Grav. 34 (2016) 015002.

•  S. Kark, D. Tuyenbayev, S. Kandhasamy, B. P. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, E. H. Anders, J. Berliner, J. Betzwieser, H. P. Daveloza, C. Cahillane, L. Canete, C. Conley, J. R. Gleason, E. Goetz, J. S. Kissel, K. Izumi, G. Mendell, V. Quetschke, M. Rodruck, S. Sachdev, T. Sadecki, P. B. Schwinberg, A. Sottile, M. Wade , A. J. Weinstein, M. West, R. L. Savage. “The Advanced LIGO Photon Calibrators.” Review of Scientific Instruments Vol. 87 Issue 11 (2016).

•  M. Wade, J. Creighton, E. Ochsner, and A. Nielsen. “Advanced LIGO’s ability to detect apparent violations of the cosmic censorship conjecture and the no-hair theorem through compact binary coalescence detections.” Phys. Rev. D 88 (2013) 083002.

Contact Information

Office phone:  (740) 427-5268

Email:  wadem@kenyon.edu

Office:  Hayes 212

Address:  201 N. College Road, Gambier, OH  43022

Kenyon Website