Peter Fritschel

Peter Fritschel is a Senior Research Scientist in the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at MIT. He is currently Chief Detector Scientist for LIGO - the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory. He received his BS in physics from Swarthmore College, and his PhD in physics from MIT, developing techniques for gravitational wave detection using interferometry. He is a recipient of the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and the 2018 Berkeley Prize in Astronomy, and is a Fellow of Optica and the American Physical Society. In 2018, he received the Charles Hard Townes Medal.

Fritschel’s research has focused on the design and development of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors, using extraordinarily sensitive, multi-kilometer baseline interferometers. The detectors use innovative precision measurement techniques, such as combining Fabry-Perot and Michelson interferometers, light recycling, and squeezed vacuum injection, to achieve sub-attometer position sensitivity. In the last two years these detectors have opened the gravitational-wave window on the universe, making transformational discoveries of gravitational waves emitted from the mergers of several binary black hole systems, and from the merger of two neutron stars.