Rochus Eugen Vogt

Rochus Eugen (Robbie) Vogt (born December 21, 1929) is a German-American physicist, famous as the director and principal investigator of the LIGO project from 1987 to 1994.

Biography Vogt studied from 1950 to 1952 at the University of Karlsruhe and from 1952 to 1953 at Heidelberg University. In 1953, he came to the United States. He graduated from the University of Chicago in physics with a master's degree in 1957 and a PhD in 1961. His doctoral dissertation Primary cosmic-ray and solar protons was supervised by Peter Meyer. At Caltech, Vogt was an assistant professor from 1962 to 1965, an associate professor from 1965 to 1970, a full professor from 1970 to 1982, and R. Stanton Avery Distinguished Service from 1982 to 2002, when he retired as professor emeritus. He was chair of Caltech's Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy from 1978 to 1983. He was the acting director of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory from 1980–1981. He was a mentor to Michael Turner, Neil Gehrels, and Anneila Sargent.

Vogt was a principal investigator of the Cosmic Ray Subsystem experiment of the Voyager mission.

Vogt received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for his work as a principal investigator on the Voyager mission, and was chief scientist at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1977–78. He led the construction of Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory’s mm-wave interferometer, had a lead role in bringing about the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and served as vice chair of the board of directors of the California Association for Research in Astronomy. From 1987 to 1994 he served as the director and principal investigator of the Caltech-MIT Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory project, becoming a co-recipient of the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

Vogt married in 1958 and is the father of two daughters.

Selected publications Articles

Books (exercises for use with volume 1 of The Feynman Lectures on Physics)