Prior to sealing up the chamber and pumping the vacuum system down, a LIGO optics technician inspects one of LIGO’s core optics (mirrors) by illuminating its surface with light at a glancing angle.

The collision of two black holes holes—a tremendously powerful event detected for the first time ever by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO—is seen in this still from a computer simulation.

Robert Ward (pictured at the LIGO facility in Hanford, WA) graduated from UNM in 2000 with a B.S. in Physics. He now works as a research fellow at the Australian National University as well as with the LIGO collaboration. 

University of New Mexico Hospitals’ 2017-18 flu-shot campaign kicks off Oct. 7.

When Robert Ward (B.S. Physics, ’00) first came to The University of New Mexico in the late-1990s, he had no idea he’d be part of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the past century. 20 years later, that’s exactly what happened and now,...

The University of New Mexico Hospitals’ 2017-18 flu-shot campaign kicks off Oct. 7 and includes 20 Saturday community clinics through Dec. 2. UNM’s primary care clinics will see adults and children six months and older, while its specialty care clinics...

Fireweed specimen, Big Costilla Peak, collected by Ben Legler, 7/21/2007.