I am the currently the Chief Scientist of the LIGO Laboratory. My office is at Caltech, but I travel frequently to the other LIGO Lab sites (MIT, the LIGO Hanford Observatory and the LIGO Livingston Observatory). I began my research in gravitational wave detection in 1980.
Along with colleagues in Australia, the LIGO Laboratory has proposed siting one of the Advanced LIGO detectors currently under construction to a location in Western Australia, at a facility to be constructed by Australia. If the project, called LIGO-Australia, goes forward, I will become the (first) Director of LIGO-Australia.
The data analysis that we perform through Einstein@Home is one of the central searches for gravitational waves using LIGO data, and thus is crucial to my research. But that is not the main reason I participate.
A project like Einstein@Home gives the people a direct and meaningful way to express their support for the quest for knowledge. By participating in this program, we tell the world how important basic research is to us, that it has the ability to inspire us, and that the average person can contribute in a meaningful way.
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