Robert Ward has been working to detect gravitational waves since 2003, when he joined the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) lab as a PhD student at the California Institute of Technology.  There he worked at the 40m interferometer, prototyping the Advanced LIGO and searching for a stochastic background of gravitational waves. From Caltech he went to the Astroparticle and Cosmology Laboratory (APC) in Paris, where he carried out the optical design for the Advanced Virgo gravitational wave detector.  He is now a Research Fellow in the Centre for Gravitational Physics at the Australian National University.  At the ANU, his work includes technology development for gravitational wave detection, precision measurement in space/satellite technology, and the development of methods and techniques for space debris tracking and mitigation. He is an author of over 116 peer reviewed publications.