Norna Robertson (FRSE, FInstP, FRAS, FAPS) is a lead scientist at LIGO at California Institute of Technology,[1] and professor of experimental physics at the University of Glasgow.[2] Her career has focused on experimental research into suspension systems and instrumentation to achieve the detection of gravitational waves.[3]
Robertson obtained a Ph.D. in experimental physics in 1981 from the University of Glasgow, researching gravitational wave detection and how seismic noise could be suppressed in sensitive measurements.[4]
Robertson began her postdoctoral career as a researcher at Imperial College London studying infrared astronomy.[5] In 1983, she joined the University of Glasgow as a lecturer and returned to gravitational waves research, becoming a Professor in 1999.[4]
In 2003, Robertson moved to the Gintzon Laboratory at Stanford University as a visiting professor, where her work focused on suspension systems for Advanced LIGO.[6] She became a lead scientist at the LIGO at California Institute of Technology in 2007, leading an international team of 20 scientists and engineers.[7] Her research contributed to the design of detection instrumentation that ultimately led to the first observation of gravitational waves in 2015.[8][9] Her work is now focused on the development of ultra-low noise suspensions systems for Advanced LIGO.[7]
Robertson was awarded the President's Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2016 for her work on suspension systems for gravitational wave detection.[10] She received the California Institute of Technology Staff Service and Impact Award in 2017.[11]
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,[12] the American Physical Society,[13] the Royal Astronomical Society, the Institute of Physics,[14] and the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation.[15]