Advanced LIGO Engineering Team Wins OSA's 2016 Forman Award

The team is recognized for its contribution to the GW detection. The Optical Society of America (OSA) has announced that the Advanced LIGO Engineering team was selected as a recipient of the 2016 Paul F. Forman Team Engineering Excellence Award. The OSA website states, "This team award recognizes technical achievements such as product engineering, process, software and patent development, as well as contributions to society such as engineering education, publication and management, and furthering public appreciation of optical engineering." Past awardees include the Intel Corporation Silicon Photonics Group (2014) and the Logic Analysis Tool Team (2015) that includes scientists and engineers from institutions such as MIT and IBM. The team will receive the award at the 2016 Frontiers in Optics (FiO), OSA's 100th Annual Meeting, in October. Dennis Coyne, LIGO Chief Engineer (Caltech) and GariLynn Billingsley, Senior Optical Engineer (Caltech) will be accepting the award on behalf of the team.

Congratulations to the Advanced LIGO Engineering team!

The LIGO Lab awardees are:

LIGO Laboratory - Caltech
Ben Abbott, Electronics engineer
Rich Abbott, Lead electronics engineer
Robert Anderson, Lead QA/manufacturing engineer
Lisa Austin, Mechanical engineer
GariLynn Billingsley, Lead optical engineer
Rolf Bork, Lead software engineer
Dennis Coyne, Chief engineer
Kate Gushwa, Mechanical engineer
Jay Heefner, Lead electronics engineer
Alastair Heptonstall, Lead laser engineer
Alex Ivanov, Real time software engineer
Mindy Jacobson, Opto-mechanical engineer
Eric James, Systems engineer
Jeff Lewis, QA/manufacturing engineer
Mohana Mageswaran, Electrical engineer
Ken Mailand, Opto-mechanical engineer
Margot Phelps, Optical engineer
Eduardo Sanchez, Design engineer
Zhenhua Shao, Electronics engineer
Michael Smith, Opto-mechanical engineer
Calum Torrie, Deputy Chief engineer
Liyuan Zhang, Optical engineer

LIGO Laboratory - MIT
Sam Barnum, Mechanical engineer
Sebastien Biscans, Mechanical engineer
Stephany Foley, Mechanical engineer
Michael Hillard, Mechanical engineer
Ken Mason, Lead mechanical engineer
Fabrice Matichard, Lead mechanical engineer
Rich Mittleman, Controls engineer
Andy Stein, Mechanical engineer

LIGO Laboratory - LIGO Hanford Observatory
Dave Barker, Lead computer systems engineer
Jim Batch, Software engineer
Filiberto Clara, Electrical engineer
Doug Cook, Optical engineer
Corey Gray, mechanical engineer
Jonathan Hanks, Software engineer
Peter King, Lead laser engineer
Jeff Kissel, Lead controls engineer
Vincent Lhuillier, Controls engineer
Richard McCarthy Lead electrical engineer
Edmond Merilh, Electronics assembly and test engineer
Gerardo Moreno, Assembly, test, and QA engineer
Jason Oberling, Opto-mechanical engineer
Hugh Radkins, Lead servo-mechanical installation/test engineer
Cyrus Reed, Software engineer
Kyle Ryan, Vacuum engineer
Paul Schwinberg, Electrical engineer
Aaron Sevigny, Electrical engineer
Cheryl Vorvick, Opto-mechanical engineer
Jim Warner, Installation and test engineer
Betsy Weaver, Lead opto-mechanical installation/test engineer
John Worden, Lead Operations engineer

LIGO Laboratory - LIGO Livingston Observatory
Carl Adams, Lead electronics engineer
Stuart Aston, Opto-mechanical engineer
Derek Bridges, Assembly and test engineer
Dwayne Giardina, Software engineer
David Kinzel, Electronics engineer
Adrien LeRoux, Integration and testing engineer
Scott McCormick, Vacuum engineer
Mike Meyer, Mechanical engineer
Adam Mullavey, Systems engineer
Arnaud Pele, Integration and testing engineer
Celine Ramet, Lead mechanical engineer
Janeen Romie, Lead mechanical engineer
Keith Thorne, Lead computer systems engineer
Gary Traylor, Lead assembly/installation engineer
Michael Vargas, SEI assembly engineer

Additionally, the Advanced LIGO Engineering Team includes the following non-LIGO Lab members:

Albert Einstein Institute and Laser Zentrum Hannover: Maik Frede, Electro-optics engineer; Gerrit Kuehn, Computer systems engineer; Michaela Pickenpack, Electro-optics engineer; Oliver Puncken, Electro-optics engineer; Andreas Weidner, Electronics engineer; Lutz Winkelmann, Opto-mechanical engineer.
Glasgow University: Angus Bell, Opto-mechanical engineer; Russell Jones, Opto-mechanical engineer.
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory: Justin Greenhalgh, Lead mechanical engineer; Joe O'Dell, Mechanical engineer; Ian Wilmut, Mechanical engineer.
Stanford University: Charles Celerier, Software engineer; Dan Clark, Mechanical engineer; Dan DeBra, System design engineer; Corwin Hardham, Mechanical engineer; Brian Lantz, Lead system and controls engineer; Hugo Paris, Controls engineer; Brett Shapiro, Controls and modeling engineer.
University of Florida: Muzamil Arain, Optical engineer; Joe Gleason, Opto-mechanical engineer; Matthew Heintze, Opto-mechanical engineer; Rodica Martin, Optical engineer; Luke Williams, Opto-mechanical engineer.

Image: The Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award. Credit: The Optical Society.