My name is James Hough and I won the 2018 RAS Gold medal (A) for my experimental contribution to the detection of gravitational waves from coalescing black holes in the Universe by the LIGO/Virgo detector collaboration.
My whole career has essentially been devoted to developing gravitational wave detectors since 1971, and I am the UK principal investigator for the UK/German detector GEO 600 as well as being a member of LIGO. Other highlights include being elected to the Royal Society in 2003, award of an OBE in 2013 for services to science, award of the of the 2016 Royal Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, award of the 2018 Edison Volta Medal and Prize of the European Physical Society and award of a knighthood in 2018/19.
Apart from science my interests centre on sports cars – in particular a Porsche and a TVR, photography, steam trains and steam boats, short wave radio and animals.
In the last category I am a butler to a very intelligent oriental cat!