Stanley Whitcomb, PhD

Stanley Whitcomb was formerly chief scientist at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

Stan’s work has focused on laser interferometric gravitational-wave detector development and gravitational-wave astronomy. He was with LIGO from it’s enabling research, through design, construction, commissioning, observations, and data analysis. His work on LIGO has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Special Breakthrough Prize and the Gruber Cosmology Prize as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

Stan received his bachelors in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1973, and with support from a Hertz Fellowship, completed his doctorate in physics at the University of Chicago in 1980. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America and a member of the American Astronomical Society.