Max Goodrich Distinguished Lecture Series featuring Peter Saulson, Research Affiliate at the MIT Kavli Institute and Professor Emeritus of Physics at Syracuse University.

For many decades, gravitational wave astronomy was a field whose only accomplishments lay in the future. Now, gravitational wave observatories have shown us cosmic events that had only been dreamed of. Future observations ought to show us much more, allowing us to probe the history of the universe in uniquely powerful ways. This talk will survey the history of the development of gravitational wave detectors, summarize the most important observations of gravitational wave signals, and give a glimpse into the most promising future developments.

The lecture will also highlight the career of Professor Joseph Giaime.

Joseph Giaime joined LSU as an assistant professor in 1999. Upon arrival he became the leader of the development of advanced seismic isolation systems for LIGO Livingston, which at the time could only operate at night due to the seismic noise generated by human activity in the day. He was appointed head of the LIGO Livingston Observatory in 2009. Among his activities he co-led the writing of the paper describing the collision of two neutron stars and their astronomical followup, which had over 3,600 authors from several collaboration. He was named a 2020 LSU Distinguished Research Master and received many awards as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.