David McClelland (physicist) -

explication
This explication written by Douglas Bishop

David Ernest McClelland is an Australian physicist, with his research focused on the
development of the manipulation and control of optical quantum states, and its implementation
into gravitational wave observatories. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the
American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America. Since 2001, he has been a
professor at the Australian National University in the Research School of Physics and
Engineering, in Canberra. He is Director of the ANU's and Deputy Director of - the Australian
Research Council Centre of Excellence in Gravitational Wave Discovery.
Biography
Career
David McClelland received his PhD degree from the University of Otago, New Zealand, in 1987.
He was awarded a Beverly Research Fellowship before being appointed in 1988 to the Australian
National University, as a Lecturer.
In 1990, at the ANU, he and his colleagues demonstrated -0.8 dB of optical squeezing at a few
hundred mega Hertz using barium atoms. Over the years he establish the Centre for
Gravitational Physics at the ANU, and build a rich and vibrant research group working on a
squeezed light source in the audio-frequency band for future gravitational wave detectors.
In 1998 he became the chair of the Australian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational
Astronomy. This is a consortium of 6 Australian institutions collaborating and working on
research and development for current and future gravitational wave detectors around the
world. Its members contributed to the LIGO instrument and data analyses for the first direct
detection of gravitational waves of a merger of a binary black hole merger.
In late 2003 with his graduate students they demonstrated squeezing down to a few hundred
Hertz using nonlinear crystals. This technique and implementation is still used to produce the
best optical squeezers in the world.
In 2020 he established the Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics that is a joint facility of ANU
Research School of Physics and Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Works
He has published over 300 journal articles. He was the lead investigator for the Australian
hardware contribution to the Advanced LIGO that, in September 2015, made the first direct
observation of gravitational waves.
Recognition
He is a recipient of the Joseph F Keithley Award for Advances in Measurement Science and the
2017 Walter Boas Medal. Currently he is a Distinguished Professor at The Australian National
University in Canberra.
In 2020 he was a joint recipient of the Australian Prime Minister's Prize for Science for his
leadership of the Australian contribution to gravitational wave detection.
In 2021 he was awarded the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal of the Australian Academy of Science
for his work on quantum enhancement of gravitational wave detectors using squeezed states of
light.
References
External links
https://cga.anu.edu.au