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About Dr. Ben Owen

Dr. Ben Owen is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Penn State University. Much of his research involves gravitational wave physics. He is hoping to test his predictions with LIGO data.

Dr. Owen received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology where he worked under Dr. Kip Thorne, author of Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy. Dr. Owen won the Clauser Prize for the best thesis in his graduating class. Titled "Gravitational Waves from Compact Objects", his thesis predicted a new source of gravitational waves. This research has been discussed during several conferences and in over 100 articles.

Dr. Owen did research at the Albert Einstein Institute in Germany and at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before joining the Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry and the Center for Gravitational Wave Physics at Penn State. Dr. Owen is a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and does data analysis. He visits the LIGO sites in Hanford, WA and Livingston, LA regularly.