March 2017
David Shoemaker named spokesperson for LIGO Scientific Collaboration
Senior MIT research scientist to speak for international collaboration for gravitational wave detection research.
MIT News

In the late 70s, I worked in Rai Weiss’ lab on the COBE satellite FIRAS interferometer that measured the Planck Spectrum, and then moved to the interferometric detection of gravitational waves in the early 80s. I spent a few years at Max Planck in Garching, Germany and the CNRS in Paris, France, developing specific technologies for gravitational wave detection, then returned to MIT in ’89.  I led the Advanced LIGO Project. The team delivered detectors in March 2015 which, after commissioning and observing, enabled the first detection of gravitational waves in September 2015. in March 2017 I was elected for a 2-year term as Spokesperson of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

LIGO and gravitational wave resources in DSpace@MIT

I work on instrumentation to enable the observation of gravitational radiation via precision measurement techniques.