Elena Cuoco

Elena Cuoco is an Italian physicist. She is a Full Professor at the University of Bologna, where she teaches Gravitational Wave Physics. She was the Head of Data Science at the European Gravitational Observatory. Cuoco develops machine learning approaches for gravitational wave research. She was part of the team who won the 2017 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

Early life and education Cuoco became interested in science as a child, and enjoyed imagining the universe when she stared at the dark night sky. She became interested in physics at high school, and eventually studied statistical analysis and astrophysics at university of Pisa. She started a doctoral fellowship at the University of Pisa, where worked on the Virgo experiment.

Research and career Cuoco is an expert in data analysis. Gravitational wave detectors collect information from astrophysical phenomena, such as the coalescence of binary stars and collapse of massive stars, alongside 'glitches' (noise) – spikes of intensity that occur due to transient noise over a short time. Cuoco develops strategies to identify very faint astrophysical signals from very large noise. Cuoco developed a COST Action (CA17137) Programme on Gravitational Waves and Machine Learning. In 2018, Cuoco was made Head of Data Science at the European Gravitational Observatory.

Cuoco moved to the University of Bologna in 2024, where she works on the application of artificial intelligence for gravitational wave data analysis. She is one of those responsible for the data analysis platform for the Einstein Telescope, for which she developed data quality assessments and strategies to identify and eliminate noise.

Selected publications