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LSC Academic Advisory Committee (LAAC)
The LAAC now has a website
laac.docs.ligo.org
, where you can find out who is currently on the committee, our current projects, and other useful information for students, postdocs, and other new members of the collaboration.
Chat to us and your fellow early career researchers on our mattermost channel:
chat.ligo.org/ligo/channels/laac
The LAAC was created back in the Initial LIGO era towards the end of S5 as the LSC was beginning to rapidly grow. It initially consisted of appointed members: a few senior members and one postdoc and one grad student representative. As the collaboration grew even further, and the role of this new committee became better defined, it expanded to include two student and two postdoc representatives, with all positions being elected.
We are the elected representatives to serve as the voice for the students and postdocs when it comes to policies and decisions made by the LSC Directorate and Council. Our job is to be advocates on behalf of students and postdocs. To do so, we need to know about your experiences as junior members of the LSC. Please share with us your concerns, desires, and what you like best and worst!
The responsibilities of the LSC Academic Advisory Committee are to:
Serve as an advocate with the LSC Council and Executive Committee for the educational aspects across all of LSC for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs.
Provide a mechanism to gather and evaluate information concerning LSC's educational program and recommend improvements to the LSC Council.
Work with LSC collaborating institutions to help ensure that the postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates associated with LSC get a broad education, quality mentoring and
appropriate recognition
for their work.
The LAAC reports annually to the LSC Council on items relevant to the Collaboration's plans and activities for education and training for students and postdocs in the LSC.
You can reach all of the
members of the LAAC
by email
at
laac@ligo.org
LAAC presence at LVK meetings
Resources
For learning about being a member of the LSC:
For seeing what your peers are researching:
For learning more about gravitational waves:
For job hunting:
Projects and resources in various states of development
Archives of past LAAC projects
Resources for the LAAC members
LAAC Web Utilities
LAAC presence at LVK meetings
LAAC events at March 2026 LVK meeting in Pisa, Italy
March 2026 LVK Meeting Website
Full registration from 31st January 2026 to 28th February 2026
Contact the March 2026 LVK Meeting event organisers via
lvk2026pisa@ego-gw.it
LVK Meeting main Wiki page
Link to DCC page for March 2026 LVK Meeting
Link to Wiki page on poster session
Poster registration:
8 February
Sparkler slide submission
: 2 March
DCC poster submission:
9 March
Many of the efforts of the LSC Academic Advisory Committee in its early years of existence revolved around making the LVK meetings more student friendly. The LAAC initiatives that have now become integral and expected parts of today's LVK meetings are the following:
Poster Session
Poster Prize
-- an award is given to the best instrumentation and data analysis/astrophyics student posters, respectively
Tutorials
-- a dedicated session for postdocs and students to teach each other, in an interactive way, about research topics or resources they find useful
Social event -- exclusively for postdocs and students
Networking lunch -- this hasn't yet become a mainstay of every meeting, but we'd like it to! An opportunity to explicitly have lunch with people you don't know, senior and junior.
Links to previous LVK meeting LAAC pages:
LAAC events at September 2025 LVK meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado
LAAC events at March 2025 LVK meeting in Melbourne, Australia
LAAC events at September 2024 LVK meeting in Barcelona, Spain
LAAC events at March 2024 LVK meeting at LSC/Baton Rouge
LAAC events at September 2023 LVK meeting in Toyama, Japan
Resources
We've compiled, and in some cases created, various resources that you should find helpful at different stages in your learning and progression through career.
For learning about being a member of the LSC:
The
LSC Beginner's Guide
For seeing what your peers are researching:
Thesis database
-- list of LSC students and tentative thesis titles.
For learning more about gravitational waves:
Educational Resources
- recommended books, summer schools, and select recorded lectures
Tutorials
For job hunting:
Job Postings
-- a list of all of the job and fellowship announcements that are advertised to lsc-all
Fellowships
-- a list of fellowships with regular calls (mostly once a year)
CV and job application guidance
-- advice on how to write a CV, prepare job applications and write recommendation letters
Recognition for collaboration contributions
Undergraduate Resources
- undergrad summer research opportunities in gravitational waves
Projects and resources in various states of development
We are always looking for enthusiastic volunteers to help us revive old projects or create new ones to best suit the needs of today's students and postdocs. Here's a partial list of initiatives, some of which we're actively working on, some of which are in hibernation after a go in the past. Please write to us if you'd like to help!
Master's students list
-- we're working with LSC IT people to get this set up properly
Gravitational waves course development
Alumni tracking and networking
Peer mentoring program
Archives of past LAAC projects
LIGO Student Fellowship Program
-- a competitive fellowship to spend a year doing research at one of the LIGO observatories (no longer in existence as of 2015)
Author credit issues
-- a discussion in 2012 for the Program Advisory Committee
Resources for the LAAC members
Quick links for new committee members
LAAC Meeting Minutes
-- Current call times: Every second Tue, 2pm US central, 3pm US east, 6pm BRT, 8pm UK, 9pm central Europe, (Wed) 5am Australie (east) - next calls: 5th of May, 19th of May, 2nd of June...
Example reminder update email
for the Thesis Database
Lessons learned / Planning for future LAAC sessions at LVC meetings (tutorials/retreat) -
wiki link
poster session logistics
vocabulary
how to upload my poster and sparkler slide to the dcc
LAAC Web Utilities
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Topic revision: r92 - 2026-03-04, mikhail.korobko@ligo.org
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