Detectors Made of Stars: NANOGrav's Current Status and Vision for Pulsar Timing as Gravitational Wave Detectors

NANOGrav and the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA) have been at the forefront of low-frequency gravitational wave science for many years by performing consistent, long-term, high-precision measurements of the arrival times of radio pulses from arrays of millisecond pulsars. In this talk, I report on the current status of NANOGrav and IPTA's efforts to time and study pulsars and the interstellar medium, develop methods for gravitational-wave detection, investigate supermassive black holes, constrain new physics, and broaden the collaborations' reach within the wider community. In particular, I present the preliminary status of our searches for the gravitational-wave background, building on our previous efforts that uncovered the first evidence for such a background in the summer of 2023.