Barry Barish

Barry Clark Barish (born January 27, 1936) is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate. He is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves. In 2017, Barish was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves". He said, "I didn't know if I would succeed. I was afraid I would fail, but because I tried, I had a breakthrough." In 2018, he joined the faculty at University of California, Riverside, becoming the university's second Nobel Prize winner on the faculty. In the fall of 2023, he joined Stony Brook University as the inaugural President's Distinguished Endowed Chair in Physics. In 2023, Barish was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Biden in a White House ceremony.