Eric Poisson

Eric Poisson
Born	Montreal, Quebec
Fields	Gravitational physics
Institutions	University of Guelph, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Alma mater	Laval University, University of Alberta
Doctoral advisor	Werner Israel
Notable awards	Herzberg Medal (2005)

Eric Poisson is a Canadian, award-winning physicist specializing in the theory of black holes. Poisson is a professor at the University of Guelph as well as an affiliate member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

He was born in Montreal, Quebec and grew up in Rimouski and Quebec City. He obtained his BSc from Laval University in Quebec City, and his Ph.D. at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton. He received his doctorate in 1991 under the supervision of Werner Israel.

Poisson's doctoral dissertation was on the concept of mass inflation (not to be confused with cosmological inflation), which he pioneered with Israel. Prior to the understanding of mass inflation, it was believed that wormholes into other universes would be found inside some black holes. Mass inflation closes off these wormholes in realistic black holes.

After completing his doctorate, Poisson spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow in Kip Thorne's research group at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena. During this period, he became interested in the gravitational wave signatures that black hole systems might produce. Such signatures are crucial for the operation of gravitational wave detectors which are being developed such as LIGO. This work continued for a subsequent year spent with Clifford Will at Washington University in St. Louis.

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