GR Amaldi Meeting 2025
Date: Sunday 13 July 2025
Time: 19:00 - 20:00
Venue: Boyd Orr Building, Lecture Theatre 222
Category: Public lectures
Speaker: Dr Erin MacDonald

Join LIGO alumna and current Star Trek science consultant Erin Macdonald for a journey in the applications of general relativity in science fiction. We will look at the presentation of warp drives and wormholes, as well as time travel, subspace, and all sorts of spacetime "anomalies". Erin will also share some of the specific storylines she has been involved in, and try to explain why the presentation of gravitational waves in Star Trek is less than ideal! Finally, she will also share how she ended up in this unique career path after leaving LIGO over a decade ago! 

We are very excited that Erin will be giving a public lecture the evening before the conference. Erin is a renowned science communicator, writer and scientific consultant, she did a PhD at the University of Glasgow on the detection of continuous gravitational waves from the Crab Pulsar, transitioning into science communication through multiple outlets including the YouTube channel Dr. Erin Explains the Universe she has also endeavoured to bring scientific accuracy to Hollywood and worked as scientific consultant for Star Trek, and making cameo appearances. We are delighted to welcome Erin back to Glasgow for what will be a fantastic talk. 

This lecture is part of the public programme of the GR Amaldi conference organised by the University of Glasgow and the institute of Physics https://iop.eventsair.com/gr24-amaldi16/public-programme

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