Dr. Jane Glanzer is a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology. She received her PhD in Physics from Louisiana State University in 2024 working with Dr. Gabriela Gonzalez. Her research interests include detector characterization and calibration - she works on mitigating detector noise that can negatively impact the detectors' astrophysical reach, and on producing high-quality calibrated gravitational wave data. Outside of research, Jane spends her time watching soccer, playing video games, and hanging out at the beach.
Jane Glanzer wins LIGO Lab 2025 Award for Excellence in Detector Characterization and Calibration
News Release • November 25, 2025
The U.S. National Science Foundation Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (NSF LIGO) Laboratory congratulates Jane Glanzer of Caltech for winning this year's LIGO Laboratory Award for Excellence in Detector Characterization and Calibration.
Glanzer is recognized for critical and timely contributions to both calibration and detector characterization for the fourth observing run (O4), including improved calibration of LIGO data at high frequencies, mitigation of LIGO detector glitches, and production of key LIGO data products.
Glanzer’s work has impacted all areas of gravitational-wave science by improving the sensitivity of the search algorithms used to identify candidate signals and the performance of the gravitational-wave detectors themselves. Glanzer also deployed a measurement system that allows well-constrained calibration uncertainty budgets at high frequencies. This improved calibration at higher frequencies improves our ability to recover the final moments of the merger of black holes and neutron stars as well as gravitational waves from other sources, such as the explosion of dying stars. Glanzer is currently developing new infrastructure for an upgraded calibration pipeline, which will lead to more accurate LIGO data calibration and improved understanding of astrophysical signals in future observation runs.
For her work, Glanzer will receive a $1,000 prize and present an invited seminar at one of the LIGO Laboratory sites (LIGO-Hanford, LIGO-Livingston, Caltech, or MIT) to share her achievements with LIGO Laboratory members. Glanzer will also be presented with an award certificate at the next meeting of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration.
Learn more about Glanzer's work and find a list of excellent LIGO Detector Characterization and Calibration projects that earned honorable mention for the 2025 award.
Read more about the LIGO Laboratory Award for Excellence in Detector Characterization and Calibration.
