LSU Professor Wins Nobel Prize in Physics

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LSU Adjunct Professor and MIT Professor Emeritus Rainer Weiss and California Institute of Technology professor emeriti Kip Thorne and Barry Barish have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. One-half of the prize was awarded to Weiss and the other half is shared by Thorne and Barish. Weiss and Thorne are co-founders of the LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration. Barish led the final design stage, construction and commissioning of the LIGO interferometers in Livingston, La. and Hanford, Wash.

The LIGO Livingston observatory is located on LSU property, and LSU faculty, students and research staff are major contributors to the international LIGO Science Collaboration, or LSC. Gabriela González, LSU professor of physics and astronomy, is the former elected spokesperson, who led the LSC during the initial detection. Together with other leaders and founders of the LIGO effort, González made the official statements about the historic detection on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., before gathered national science press. 

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