Joseph Kovalik

Born January 20, 1965 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Canadian Citizen, U.S. Permanent Resident.
Widowed with one daughter.


Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, MA, USA.
Ph.D. in physics, September, 1994.
Thesis title: A Study of Thermal Noise.

California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A.
B.S. with Honour in physics, June, 1986.

Work Experience
9/99-present  California Institute of Technology, LIGO Project, Livingston Laboratory-Scientist.
Involved in all the aspects of commissioning the LIGO detector in Livingston, Louisiana.  Responsible for the operation of  the laser, various control systems and measurement of detector performance.  Also, have duties to train technical staff and students and produce tutorial materials.
3/95-8/99  Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics), Perugia, Research Associate VIRGO Project.
Responsible for establishing various facilities to make precision measurements of low loss materials and creep in mechanical systems by using interferometric and other optical and electronic techniques.   This included modeling, designing and fabricating experimental facilities and then analyzing the data produced.

9/94-1/95  Department of Physics, M.I.T., Post--Doctoral Research Associate.

9/86-9/94   Department of Physics, M.I.T., Graduate Research Assistant.
Worked on understanding the thermal noise limits of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravity wave Observatory) interferometer both experimentally and theoretically. Research objective was to develop interferometric techniques to measure distance displacements on the order of 10-18 m over distances of 4 km at frequencies from 10 Hz to a few hundred Hz.
The major part of  my doctoral thesis involved designing and building a special purpose, high sensitivity  laser interferometer to measure mechanical noise sources  that are ten million times smaller than the size of an atom.  The measured noise level was 2x10-17m/Hz1/2 at frequencies from 500 Hz to 20 kHz which was a record measurement at the time.
 6/82-6/86  Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, Caltech .
Undergraduate research involving a search for magnetic monopoles using a Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID).

Skills
Technical:  Lasers, high power lasers, infrared, optics, fibre optics, opto-electronics, electronics, RF techniques, low noise techniques, control systems, mechanical design, fabrication, testing, vacuum, documentation, public relations.

Computer:   LabView, FORTRAN, UNIX, Windows, BASIC, Mathematica, Matlab, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, LaTeX.

Languages:  Fluent in Italian and French

Career Objectives
To find a challenging career where I can make the most use of my skills in cutting edge applications of  high technology.

Contact Information

LIGO Livingston Observatory
P.O. Box 940
Livingston, LA  70754

(225) 686-3111 (phone)
(225) 686-7189 (fax)
e-mail: kovalik@ligo-la.caltech.edu
website:  http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~kovalik

This page last updated on April 29, 2002.