Matthew J. Evans

Biography

Professor Evans received his B.S. in Physics from Harvey Mudd College in 1996 and his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology in 2002. He continued his work on LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, in his post-doctoral years at Caltech, then moved to the European Gravitational Observatory to work on the Virgo project. In 2007 he took a position at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a research scientist working on the Advanced LIGO project, where he helped design and build the Advanced LIGO interferometer.  

Research Interest

Professor Evans' research is focused on gravitational wave detector instrument science, aimed at improving the sensitivity existing detectors and designing future detectors. In addition to his work on the Advanced LIGO detectors in Hanford, WA and Livingston, LA, in the labs at MIT Professor Evans explores the physical processes that set fundamental limits on the sensitivity of future gravitational wave detectors. Of particular interest are the quantum and thermal limitations which have the strongest impact on ground-based detectors like LIGO, and also play a role in the related fields of ultra-stable frequency references and macroscopic quantum measurement (MQM).