Highlighting the Humans behind the LIGO Scientific Collaboration

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration has over 2000 members from across the globe contributing to the frontier of gravitational-wave science. With such a large collaboration comes the challenge of recognising the contributions of individual people. Two of the collaboration’s outreach initiatives highlight the personal experiences of the diverse group of scientists, engineers, technicians and administrators: the LIGO Magazine (www.ligo.org/magazine) and Humans of LIGO (humansofligo.blogspot.com). The LIGO Magazine is a twice-annual publication featuring news from the gravitational-wave community, interviews, personal experiences and advice. Humans of LIGO features blog posts showcasing the lives of Collaboration members — their backgrounds, hobbies, and inspirations. These projects reach beyond the LIGO community, being read by teachers, government officials, and prospective students

interested in becoming involved in the collaboration. In this talk I summarise the work going into the production of the LIGO Magazine and Humans of LIGO, the statistics behind the contributing collaboration members, and discuss the influences of both initiatives beyond the Collaboration. I highlight the importance of featuring the people behind the reports of groundbreaking science in any setting, and how this style of outreach supports that aim.