Peter R. Saulson

Peter Reed Saulson (born October 30, 1954) is an American physicist and professor at Syracuse University. He is best known as a former spokesperson for the LIGO collaboration serving from 2003 to 2007 and research on gravitational wave detectors. studied physics at Harvard University where he earned a bachelor's degree (magna cum laude) in 1976. He later studied at Princeton University where he received a master's degree in 1978 and a doctorate in 1981. He was then a post-doctoral scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he started in 1985 and worked as principal research scientist until 1989. In 1989 he was a visiting scientist at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Boulder, Colorado.

Career Saulson is Martin A. Pomerantz '37 Professor of Physics at Syracuse University where he co-leads the Gravitational-Wave Astronomy Group. He was associate professor there from 1991 to 1999 and head of the physics department from 2010 to 2013. He was named Syracuse University's 2003-04 University Scholar/Teacher of the Year.

In 2016 he received the National Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Discovery with Gabriela González, his former PhD student, and David Reitze.

In 2026, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

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