Maximiliano Isi

Assistant Professor, Department of Astronomy, Columbia University
Associate Research Scientist, Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute

Using gravitational waves to learn what black holes are, where they come from, and what they reveal about the universe.

Research Meet the group Publications About me

Photo: La Diaria, Juan Manuel Ramos

Research

Black-hole ringdowns

Listening to the final ring of newborn black holes to test general relativity and the Kerr nature of black holes.

Black-hole populations

What the growing catalog of mergers reveals about how black holes form, spin, and pair up, and what gravity looks like at the population level.

Machine learning and statistical methods

Fast, flexible inference tools: differentiable waveforms, normalizing flows, and likelihoods that learn what real detector noise looks like.

Group

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The group brings together 4 postdoctoral researchers, 3 graduate students and 4 undergraduates across Columbia University and the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics.

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Selected publications

h-index 113 / 37 | publications 259 / 68 | citations 121k / 5.2k first number includes LIGO collaboration papers; second number excludes them — via INSPIRE, September 28, 2026

ApJ

Identifying Compact Chirping SMBHBs in LSST using Bayesian Analysis

Chengcheng Xin*, Maximiliano Isi, Will M. Farr, and 1 more author

Astrophys. J., Jun 2026

arXiv Bib HTML

@article{Xin:2025voy,
  author = {Xin*, Chengcheng and Isi, Maximiliano and Farr, Will M. and Haiman, Zolt\'an},
  title = {{Identifying Compact Chirping SMBHBs in LSST using Bayesian Analysis}},
  eprint = {2506.10846},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {astro-ph.HE},
  month = jun,
  year = {2026},
  journal = {Astrophys. J.},
  volume = {999},
  number = {1},
  pages = {149},
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ae40b3},
}

ApJ

Hints of spin-magnitude correlations and a rapidly spinning subpopulation of binary black holes

Asad Hussain*, Maximiliano Isi, and Aaron Zimmerman

Astrophys. J., Nov 2026

arXiv Bib HTML

@article{Hussain:2024qzl,
  author = {Hussain*, Asad and Isi, Maximiliano and Zimmerman, Aaron},
  title = {{Hints of spin-magnitude correlations and a rapidly spinning subpopulation of binary black holes}},
  eprint = {2411.02252},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {astro-ph.HE},
  reportnumber = {LIGO-P2400522, UTWI-33-2024},
  month = nov,
  year = {2026},
  journal = {Astrophys. J.},
  volume = {996},
  number = {1},
  pages = {71},
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ae1574},
}

ApJ

Physical Models for the Astrophysical Population of Black Holes: Application to the Bump in the Mass Distribution of Gravitational Wave Sources

Jacob Golomb*, Maximiliano Isi, and Will Farr

Astrophys. J., Nov 2024

arXiv Bib HTML

@article{Golomb:2023vxm,
  author = {Golomb*, Jacob and Isi, Maximiliano and Farr, Will},
  title = {{Physical Models for the Astrophysical Population of Black Holes: Application to the Bump in the Mass Distribution of Gravitational Wave Sources}},
  eprint = {2312.03973},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {astro-ph.HE},
  month = nov,
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ad8572},
  year = {2024},
  publisher = {The American Astronomical Society},
  volume = {976},
  number = {1},
  pages = {121},
  journal = {Astrophys. J.}
}

PRL

Testing the Black-Hole Area Law with GW150914

Maximiliano Isi, Will M. Farr, Matthew Giesler, and 2 more authors

Phys. Rev. Lett., Nov 2021

arXiv Bib HTML

@article{Isi:2020tac,
  author = {Isi, Maximiliano and Farr, Will M. and Giesler, Matthew and Scheel, Mark A. and Teukolsky, Saul A.},
  title = {{Testing the Black-Hole Area Law with GW150914}},
  eprint = {2012.04486},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {gr-qc},
  reportnumber = {LIGO-P2000507},
  doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.011103},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. Lett.},
  volume = {127},
  number = {1},
  pages = {011103},
  year = {2021}
}

PRL

Testing the no-hair theorem with GW150914

Maximiliano Isi, Matthew Giesler, Will M. Farr, and 2 more authors

Phys. Rev. Lett., Nov 2019

arXiv Bib HTML

@article{Isi:2019aib,
  dimensions = {true},
  web = {https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/s105},
  author = {Isi, Maximiliano and Giesler, Matthew and Farr, Will M. and Scheel, Mark A. and Teukolsky, Saul A.},
  title = {{Testing the no-hair theorem with GW150914}},
  eprint = {1905.00869},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {gr-qc},
  reportnumber = {LIGO-P1900135},
  doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.111102},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. Lett.},
  volume = {123},
  number = {11},
  pages = {111102},
  year = {2019}
}

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Latest notes

Mar 1, 2024	Computing the autocovariance function of the LIGO-Virgo design noise spectrum
Jul 27, 2023	Fitting a hierarchical Gaussian model with NumPyro on a GPU
Jul 27, 2023	Fitting a hierarchical Gaussian model with NumPyro on CPUs

All notes →

Maximiliano Isi

Research

Black-hole ringdowns

Black-hole populations

Machine learning and statistical methods

Group

Selected publications

Latest notes

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