Searching for [a way to do research on] Gravitational Waves

As an undergraduate physics major in the 1960s, I had heard of J. Weber's experiments to detect gravitational waves. I went to graduate school at the U. of Maryland at least partially motivated to participate in that research. In the end, my interest was captured by quantum cosmology and I spent the rest of that century working in various areas of gravitational theory. I started interacting with LIGO people in 1992 when I began the effort that led to the APS Topical Group in Gravitation, now DGRAV. In late 2001, I went to NSF as Program Director for Gravitational Physics where part of my job was to manage funding the LIGO collaboration in the US and to assist in NSF oversight of the LIGO Lab. During this LIGO exposure, I became fascinated by LIGO noise and realized that LIGO noise hunting might be something I could do. Thus, shortly after my retirement in 2011, I joined the LIGO collaboration.