Jess McIver

Jess McIver is an American astronomer. She is an Associate Professor and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia. McIver is a member of LIGO, one of the recipients of the Science 2017 Breakthrough of the Year.

Early life and education McIver grew up near Schenectady, New York, and graduated from Mohonasen High School in 2005. Following high school, she enrolled at Syracuse University for a dual Bachelor's degree in Physics and Journalism. As an undergraduate, McIver started working on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project.

Following this, McIver joined the faculty at the University of British Columbia as an assistant professor in their Department of Physics. In this role, her research team contributed to LIGO by searching for gravitational wave signals from spinning neutron stars and recovering signals in addition to improving and calibrating the Advanced LIGO detectors. Their efforts helped lead to the discovery of the most asymmetric gravitational-wave source yet observed by scientists after the harmonics in gravitational wave signals observed from the collision of black holes. Later that year, McIver's research team helped confirm the existence of 39 new gravitational wave event detections. In January 2022, McIver was appointed a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics.