Title:
Transient astronomy with gravitational waves.

Abstract:
Many of the most violent events in the universe - such as supernovae, gamma ray bursts and black hole collisions - are expected to emit gravitational waves, quite literally ripples in the fabric of space and time.  Decades of development by an international collaboration of scientists has led to the construction of the advanced LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors which will begin observations in 2015.  With these detectors, we expect to make the first observations of gravitational waves by the end of the decade.  In this talk, I will discuss the development of gravitational wave astronomy and the impact that gravitational wave observations will have on transient astronomy.