Gravitational waves are tiny ripples in the shape of space-time, predicted by Einstein and generated during cataclysmic events such as black hole collisions. After lengthy experimental research, scientists were able to make their first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015 thanks to large interferometers.

Frédérique Marion is a senior scientist in a French CNRS institute. She has been part of gravitational wave research and the Virgo experiment since 1993. She worked on simulation tools, detector calibration, and data analysis in search of signals from compact binary coalescences involving neutron stars and black holes. For several years, she was a co-chair of the joint LIGO-Virgo analysis group in charge of those searches. She has been leading the Virgo group at LAPP (Laboratoire d'Annecy-le-Vieux de physique des particules, CNRS/Université Savoie Mont Blanc) since 2005, and is a co-chair of the joint LIGO-Virgo detection committee, set up to validate the first detection of a gravitational wave signal and the scientific publication reporting it.