Binary black hole astrophysics (gravity, astrophysics): Understanding the properties of binary mergers that we will measure with gravitational waves and how this will affect our astrophysical understanding of such systems

In 2015, the advanced LIGO detectors observed gravitational waves emitted by merging black holes. In the coming years, we will observe many more black-hole binary mergers, likely around 100 by the end of the decade. These observations will provide unrivalled opportunity to study the properties of black holes and the massive stars that lead to their formation.
The goal of this project is to understand the properties of binary mergers that we will measure with gravitational waves -- for example merger rates, masses and spins of the binary components -- and how this will affect our astrophysical understanding of such systems. It will involve contributing to the development of analyses capable of identifying the gravitational waves from binary mergers and accurately extracting their parameters. It will also involve using the analysis developed to identify black hole binary merger signals in the advanced LIGO and Virgo data, and to provide a astrophysical interpretations of the results