# LIGO Scientific Collaboration

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) is a scientific collaboration of international physics institutes and research groups dedicated to the search for gravitational waves.

## History

The LSC was established in 1997, under the leadership of Barry Barish. Its mission is to ensure equal scientific opportunity for individual participants and institutions by organizing research, publications, and all other scientific activities, and it includes scientists from both LIGO Laboratory and collaborating institutions. Barish appointed Rainer Weiss as the first spokesperson.
LSC members have access to the US-based Advanced LIGO detectors in Hanford, Washington and in Livingston, Louisiana, as well as the GEO 600 detector in Sarstedt, Germany. Under an agreement with the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO), LSC members also have access to data from the Virgo detector in Pisa, Italy. While the LSC and the Virgo Collaboration are separate organizations, they cooperate closely and are referred to collectively as "LVC". The KAGRA observatory's collaboration has joined the LIGO-Virgo collective, and the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collective is called "LVK".
The LSC Spokesperson as of 2019 is Patrick Brady of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The Executive Director of the LIGO Laboratory is David Reitze from the University of Florida.
On 11 February 2016, the LIGO and Virgo collaborations announced that they succeeded in making the first direct gravitational wave observation on 14 September 2015.
In 2016, Barish received the Enrico Fermi Prize "for his fundamental contributions to the formation of the LIGO and LIGO-Virgo scientific collaborations and for his role in addressing challenging technological and scientific aspects whose solution led to the first detection of gravitational waves".

## Collaboration members

Membership of LIGO Scientific Collaboration as of November 2015 is detailed in this table:
| Institution | Country | Members | Website |
| Abilene Christian University | United States | 2 | |
| Albert-Einstein-Institute, Hannover | Germany | 79 | Binary Merger Observations and Numerical Relativity, Laser Interferometry and Gravitational Wave Astronomy Archived 2018-10-28 at the Wayback Machine |
| Albert-Einstein-Institute, Potsdam-Golm | Germany | 21 | Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity Archived 2018-08-20 at the Wayback Machine |
| American University | United States | 4 | |
| Andrews University | United States | 6 | Andrew University LIGO Archived 2019-06-30 at the Wayback Machine |
| Australian National University | Australia | 16 | Centre for Gravitational Physics Archived 2015-09-06 at the Wayback Machine |
| California Institute of Technology | United States | 93 | LIGO Lab, Caltech LIGO Astrophysics |
| California State University, Fullerton | United States | 15 | Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy Center |
| Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics | Canada | 4 | Gravitational waves |
| Cardiff University | United Kingdom | 28 | Gravity Exploration Institute |
| Carleton College | United States | 8 | |
| Charles Sturt University | Australia | 1 | |
| Chennai Mathematical Institute | India | 1 | |
| College of William & Mary | United States | 3 | |
| Columbia University | United States | 8 | |
| Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University | United States | 8 | |
| Eötvös Loránd University | Hungary | 9 | Eötvös Gravity Research Group |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | United States | 20 | Center for Relativistic Astrophysics |
| Goddard Space Flight Center | United States | 5 | |
| Hanford Observatory | United States | 38 | LIGO Hanford |
| Hanyang University | South Korea | 1 | |
| Hobart and William Smith Colleges | United States | 4 | |
| IAP, Nizhny Novgorod | Russia | 8 | |
| ICTP-SAIFR | Brazil | 1 | |
| ICTS-TIFR | India | 9 | |
| IISER-KOL | India | 3 | |
| IISER-TVM | India | 5 | |
| Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar | India | 3 | |
| IndIGO | India | 59 | LIGO India |
| INPE | Brazil | 6 | |
| IPR-Bhat | India | 10 | |
| IUCAA | India | 14 | |
| Kenyon College | United States | 9 | |
| King's College London | United Kingdom | 1 | |
| Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information | South Korea | 4 | |
| Leibniz University Hannover | Germany | 8 | |
| Livingston Observatory | United States | 35 | LIGO Livingston |
| Louisiana State University | United States | 16 | Experimental & Theoretical General Relativity Archived 2015-11-15 at the Wayback Machine |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | 35 | MIT LIGO |
| Monash University | Australia | 9 | |
| Montana State University | United States | 3 | Gravitational Physics at MSU |
| Montclair State University | United States | 3 | |
| Moscow State University | Russia | 11 | |
| National Institute of Mathematical Sciences | South Korea | 4 | |
| National Tsing Hua University | Taiwan | 3 | |
| Northwestern University | United States | 16 | LIGO Scientific Collaboration |
| Penn State University | United States | 7 | Penn State LIGO group Archived 2020-02-23 at the Wayback Machine Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos |
| Pusan National University | South Korea | 3 | |
| Rochester Institute of Technology | United States | 13 | Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation |
| RRCAT, Indore | India | 9 | |
| Rutherford Appleton Laboratory | United Kingdom | 2 | STFC Advanced LIGO |
| Seoul National University | South Korea | 1 | |
| Sonoma State University | United States | 5 | |
| Southern University | United States | 1 | |
| Stanford University | United States | 18 | Stanford LIGO Group |
| Swinburne University of Technology | Australia | 12 | ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery |
| Syracuse University | United States | 31 | Syracuse University Gravitational Wave Group |
| Texas Tech University | United States | 8 | |
| The Chinese University of Hong Kong | Hong Kong | 12 | |
| The University of Melbourne | Australia | 3 | |
| The University of Sheffield | United Kingdom | 5 | |
| Tata Institute of Fundamental Research | India | 5 | |
| Trinity University | United States | 2 | |
| Tsinghua University | China | 5 | |
| University of Alabama in Huntsville | United States | 2 | |
| University of Adelaide | Australia | 4 | Optics and Photonics Group |
| University of Birmingham | United Kingdom | 29 | Gravitational Wave Group |
| University of Brussels | Belgium | 4 | Precision Mechatronics Laboratory |
| University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 6 | Gravitational waves |
| University of Chicago | United States | 4 | |
| University of Florida | United States | 26 | LIGO at the University of Florida |
| University of Glasgow | United Kingdom | 61 | Institute for Gravitational Research |
| University of Guadalajara | Mexico | 7 | |
| University of Hamburg | Germany | 6 | |
| University of Maryland | United States | 7 | Gravitation Experiment Group |
| University of Michigan | United States | 10 | Michigan Gravitational Wave Group |
| University of Minnesota | United States | 5 | LIGO at Minnesota Archived 2016-02-19 at the Wayback Machine |
| University of Mississippi | United States | 10 | The LIGO Team at The University of Mississippi |
| University of Oregon | United States | 10 | |
| University of Sannio | Italy | 10 | |
| University of Santiago de Compostela | Spain | 6 | |
| University of Southampton | United Kingdom | 2 | |
| University of Strathclyde | United Kingdom | 3 | |
| University of Szeged | Hungary | 3 | |
| University of Texas Rio Grande Valley | United States | 22 | Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy |
| University of Tokyo | Japan | 6 | Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, Gravitational Wave Group |
| University of the Balearic Islands | Spain | 9 | Relativity and Gravitation Group |
| University of Washington | United States | 2 | |
| University of the West of Scotland | United Kingdom | 4 | |
| University of Western Australia | Australia | 21 | |
| University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee | United States | 27 | LIGO Scientific Collaboration Research Group Archived 2016-02-15 at the Wayback Machine |
| USC Information Sciences Institute | United States | 3 | |
| Washington State University | United States | 3 | |
| West Virginia University | United States | 4 | |
| Whitman College | United States | 3 | |