Shane Larson

Shane Larson did his bachelor’s degree in physics at Oregon State. After graduate work at Montana State University, Shane did postdoctoral fellowships at Caltech, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Penn State, before taking a faculty position at Weber State University. Shane then moved to Utah State before taking his current position as an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium/Research Associate Professor at Northwestern University.

Shane studies gravitational waves, traveling distortions in space time produced by some of the most violent events in the universe. Shane is a member of the LIGO collaboration (which recently made the first direct detection of gravitational waves) and the LISA collaboration, which aims to apply the LIGO detection technique in space. Shane is also passionate about science outreach, is an avid rocketeer, and enjoys participating in high altitude balloon programs.