Senior physicists Andreas Freise of Nikhef in The Netherlands has been appointed as Project Director for the international Einstein Telescope (ET) organization.
The Einstein Telescope will be a large ground-based observatory for studying gravitational waves in Europe, using a dedicated underground infrastructure to host the most advanced instruments.
Andreas Freise recently succeeded Jo van den Brand as European project director. Together with his colleagues Fernando Ferroni from Italy and Mario Martinez from Spain, he is now leading the activities that will lead to an operational infrastructure.
Andreas Freise is a professor of Gravitational Wave Physics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Nikhef. He developed precision instrumentation for the first large gravitational wave detectors such as LIGO and Virgo.
He was a founding member of the Einstein Telescope collaboration, lead the instrument design of the observatory and served in the steering committee and as chair of the Instrument Science Board in the international collaboration.
The Einstein Telescope was recently selected for the Roadmap of the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). The project has now entered a new phase with significant national funding having been provided in the Netherlands and Italy for developing a detailed proposal for the implementation of the research infrastructure.
The ET Project Directorate has the task to pave the way to a solid and sustainable ET organization in and – among other things – the important task of monitoring, stimulating and developing an effective interface between project organization and the scientific community. The Project Directorate is further responsible to control time schedules, priorities, and budgetary constraints.