Salvatore Vitale joined the MIT Physics Department as an Assistant Professor in January 2017. He obtained his bachelor and master degrees in physics at the University of Bologna, and his phD in physics at the Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris, in 2010. He has been a postdoctoral associate at the Nikhef of Amsterdam. Before joining the faculty, he has been a postdoctoral associate and a research scientist at the MIT LIGO Lab.