MIT Kavli Institute Directory

David H. Shoemaker

Senior Research Scientist Research Scientist

In the late 70s, I worked in Rai Weiss' lab on the COBE satellite FIRAS interferometer that measured the Planck Spectrum, and then moved to the interferometric detection of gravitational waves in the early 80s. I spent a few years at Max Planck in Garching, Germany and the CNRS in Paris, France, developing specific technologies for gravitational wave detection, then returned to MIT in '89. I currently lead the Advanced LIGO Project, which will deliver in 2015 detectors which, when commissioned, should allow frequent observation of gravitational waves.

Research interests:

I work on instrumentation to enable the observation of gravitational radiation via precision measurement techniques.

Representative publications:

Noise behavior of the Garching 30 meter prototype gravitational wave detector, D. Shoemaker, R. Schilling, L. Schnupp, W. Winkler, K. Maischberger, A. Ruediger; Phys. Rev. D 38 (1988) 423432

Honors and awards:

Fellow of the American Physical Society