Making Waves at LIGO
A scenic view of LIGO’s 4-km-long interferometer arm.
Photo by Lyra Moscuzza.
What do you get when students with no event planning experience host a regional conference at one of the most remote research facilities in their state?
An unforgettable SPS zone meeting.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, interest in physics at our community college declined. In 2023–24 our SPS chapter meeting attendance dropped to zero. Thankfully, due to the advertising efforts of the physics faculty, a small group of passionate physics and engineering students took charge of our chapter at the beginning of the 2024–25 school year, and we turned it around completely. Through weekly meetings and events such as pumpkin drops, star parties, and movie nights, our regular attendance quickly tripled in size—and we had even more people attending special events!
Even though we had never hosted a zone meeting before, we accepted an invitation to host the Zone 17 Meeting in the spring of 2025. We knew this would be a challenge for us. Not only were all our SPS officers new and inexperienced, the event would also be taking place halfway across the state at LIGO’s Hanford site. LIGO stands for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory and, in 2015, it captured the first direct observation of gravitational waves. We were super excited for this opportunity and knew we could handle it.
Working with the SPS Zone 17 counselor at the time, Deanna Marshall from Central Washington University, we set the schedule, organized the food, and reached out to chapters in our region. We spent a month planning the event. It wasn’t always easy, but in the end, everything was ready.
SPS Zone 17 Meeting attendees pose for a group photo at LIGO.
Photo by Deanna Marshall.
Finally, the day arrived! We brought together more than 15 attendees from Green River College, Gonzaga University, the University of Washington Bothell, and Central Washington University. After check-in, we began with a presentation given by Marshall on opportunities available through SPS, such as scholarships, internships, and awards. This was followed by a detailed presentation given by LIGO staff on the observatory’s history, operations, and research.
After the presentation, we went on a tour of LIGO. We were fortunate to be there on a day when operations were offline, so we had the unique opportunity to see inside the facilities in addition to viewing the exterior sections. A laser interferometer works by measuring interference patterns in light waves that occur after splitting a beam of light along two perpendicular paths and reflecting them back. By using 4-km-long arms, LIGO can measure precise changes in distance between its mirrors—down to 1/10,000th of the width of a proton.
A rare glimpse into LIGO’s inner workings.
Photo by Armaan Khanuja.
After our tour, we enjoyed socializing during a lunch break. It was really great to meet fellow physics students and see what kind of research they were doing! Then we headed into a closing presentation on SPSCon given by Marshall, before finishing the meeting with a formal chapter check-in discussion.
While the meeting location was hard for some chapters to reach due to its remote nature, the event was awesome! We got to meet so many cool people and learn about so many opportunities. Attending a zone meeting—and maybe even planning one—is definitely something every SPS member should do at least once during their time as an undergraduate.
