Tiffany Nichols

"I am a historian of science and have reconstructed the history of LIGO's site selection. My research began with much curiosity around why the LIGO sites are Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington. While doing this, I also became interested in how the surrounding environment influences and shapes LIGO's experiment and efforts, especially related to things like noise mitigation. In undergraduate school, I focused on control theory and electrical engineering and I remember thinking, I would not want to be an engineer on LIGO due to the complex challenges of designing and operating precision instruments. That thought fueled my curiosity about the LIGO endeavor. I recently learned that the Cosmic Explorer Siting Team used my dissertation to prepare for their review of a candidate site. The PI mentioned that the site hadn't changed much from what I provided in my history of LIGO's site selection. It was really nice hearing that my history of science dissertation made a contribution—even if it is small! One of the challenges in pursuing this research was expanding upon my electrical engineering training to include general relativity. I had the hardest time conceptualizing some of the geometrical concepts needed for understanding the theory. It was quite embarrassing. When I learned how to sew clothing and see how fabrics could take on different shapes, things started to make sense."

Tiffany Nichols is a Assistant Professor and Legacy Survey of Space and Time Discovery Alliance Catalyst Faculty Fellow at the Department of History and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University. When not working, Tiffany spends time with her dog Kiko, continues sewing and knitting, amongst learning japanese and attending baseball games. You can follow Tiffany on Bluesky at @tiffanynichols.bsky.social.