Portrait of Paul Lasky

Currently: Visiting Professor at UBC

Vancouver · Jul 2026 – Jan 2027

Paul Lasky

Professor, School of Physics and Astronomy
Monash University · Melbourne, Australia

I’m a gravitational-wave astrophysicist. I use ripples in spacetime — from colliding black holes and neutron stars — to study the most extreme physics in the Universe: how matter behaves at nuclear densities, how black holes form and pair up, and whether Einstein’s general relativity holds in the strong-field regime. I'm the Deputy Chair of the Board of Astronomy Australia Limited, and I’m Monash node leader in OzGrav, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery.

Research themes Play with gravitational waves

Simulated binary

h(t), illustrative

01News

Latest News

Talks, papers and milestones, most recent first.

All news
  1. Accepted

    Pinchbeck, Thrane, Balazs & Lasky, BilbyFlow: user-friendly neural posterior estimation for gravitational-wave astronomy. Accepted to ApJS. arXiv:2609.00766

  2. Accepted

    Cheung (group member), Udall, Davis, Lasky & Thrane, Joint inference for gravitational-wave signal and noise glitch: Method and application. Accepted to PRD. arXiv:2607.09111

  3. Event

    This week I'm visiting CITA at the University of Toronto, Canada.

  4. Published

    Curyło, Thrane, Lasky & Gaynor, A Comprehensive Framework for Phase-coherent Mapping of the Gravitational-wave Sky with Pulsar Timing Arrays. Published in ApJ 1009, 166. arXiv:2604.19073

  5. Talk

    I gave an invited Physics Colloquium presentation to the group at Washington State University today. My talk was entitled: "Gravitational-wave discovery: past, present and future".

  6. Event

    I'm visiting Washington State University this week, being hosted by Prof. Sukanta Bose and his group in the beautiful city of Pullman, Washington.

  7. Talk

    I gave the Physics and Astronomy Colloquium today at the University of British Columbia. My talk was entitled: 'Gravitational-wave discovery: past, present and future'.

  8. New paper

    Pinchbeck, Thrane, Balazs & Lasky, BilbyFlow: user-friendly neural posterior estimation for gravitational-wave astronomy. Submitted to ApJ. arXiv:2609.00766

  9. Group

    Huge congratulations to both Christian Adamcewicz and Shun Cheung who both submitted their PhD theses today. Both Christian and Shun were co-supervised by myself and Eric Thrane.

  10. Accepted

    Guttman (group member), Baker, Lasky & Thrane, Licence to Bin: Accurate and Scalable Inference for Binary Neutron Stars in Next-Generation Gravitational-Wave Detectors. Accepted to PRD. arXiv:2606.14197

02Research

Using ripples in spacetime to study extreme physics

All research
01

Bayesian inference

Turning noisy detector data into astrophysics: Bayesian inference, model selection, transdimensional inference, and neural posterior estimation.

02

Black-hole populations

What gravitational-wave catalogues reveal about how binary black holes form, including distinct subpopulations at different masses.

03

Neutron stars & dense matter

Post-merger signals, equations of state, magnetars behind short gamma-ray bursts, and continuous waves from spinning neutron stars.

04

Gravitational-wave memory

The permanent deformation of spacetime left behind by a passing wave, and how LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA can detect it.

05

Testing general relativity

Probing Einstein’s theory in the strong-field regime, from tests of the no-hair theorem to extra polarisations and modified gravity.

06

Pulsar timing arrays

Nanohertz gravitational waves from supermassive black-hole binaries, and phase-coherent maps of the gravitational-wave sky.

03Explore

Don’t just read about gravitational waves. Play with them.

Small interactive toys for students, the curious public and colleagues.

Interactive · sound

Hear a chirp

Pick two masses and listen to the gravitational-wave signal they’d make as they merge.

Interactive · inference

Be Bilby

There’s a signal hidden in this noise. Tune the parameters until the model fits, and watch the likelihood respond.

Interactive · tour

The gravitational-wave spectrum

From the cosmic microwave background to LIGO: more than twenty decades of frequency, and what lives at each.

04Publications

Recent papers

All publications
  1. 2026
  2. 2026
  3. 2026
  4. 2026

    Fortifying gravitational-wave population inference with normalizing flows

    Adamcewicz (group member), McDougall, Lasky & Thrane

  5. 2026

Current group member

All publications

05Group

The people

Current postdocs and students, plus 26 alumni now in positions around the world.

Meet the group