Mark Hannam

"I feel like the thing I’m actually more interested in now is the human drama – and comedy – of science. How scientists behave, how chaotic it is, and how much it depends on personalities, people squabbling and fighting and making mistakes and not having a clue what they’re doing. And yet it works! Maybe I should have tried to be a sociologist or historian, someone who studies scientists, not a scientist myself. But then I get into a project and get stuck on some technical detail and I want to make it work, and sometimes it does work, and then I feel happy. So I guess I am a scientist."

Mark Hannam is a professor at Cardiff University in Wales who models gravitational waves from binary black holes. Mark enjoys scuba diving, water skiing, mountain biking and bungee jumping, but never seems to find the time. His favorite film is The Big Lebowski and his favorite book is Catch 22, and he loves to tell people why, at length. You can follow Mark on Twitter (@MarkDHannam) and on his blog The Fictional Aether.