Tiffany Nichols

About

Tiffany Nichols is a Legacy Survey of Space and Time Discovery Alliance (LSST-DA) Catalyst Faculty Fellow. Prior to her current appointment as an assistant professor at Northeastern in the Departments of History (primary) and Civil and Environmental Engineering, she was a LSST-DA Catalyst Fellow and Presidential Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University in the Departments of History and Astrophysical Sciences. Tiffany’s research interests are at the intersection of history, science, physics, technology, environment, and law. Her current research focuses on how place, surrounding environment, and laboratory are embedded in the output signals of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). In this vein, she focuses on how physicists and engineers understand what is a gravitational wave signal and what is merely noise generated by the instrument, its location, and surrounding environment. She extends this focus across multi-messenger astronomy.

Tiffany completed her PhD in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Prior to her PhD studies, she earned both a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Electrical Engineering and a Juris Doctor (JD) at the University of Virginia. She has also held positions at The RAND Corporation, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and at highly ranked U.S. law firms, where she focused on intellectual property litigation, patent prosecution and portfolio management. In addition, Tiffany was Chair for the Forum of Graduate Student Affairs of the American Physical Society (APS) from 2019 to 2020, and served as a Member-at-Large for the Forum on the History and Philosophy of Physics from 2021-2024. She is currently a member of the Committee for the Protection of Astronomy and the Space Environment (COMPASSE) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), Vice Chair of the Historical Astronomy Division of AAS, and a member-at-large of Section L, History and Philosophy of Physics of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Tiffany’s areas of expertise include: history of science, history of physics, environmental history, intellectual property law, and topics at the intersection of law and science/technology.

Selected Publications

Selected sole authorship publications:

• Tiffany Nichols, “‘One of the best sites on the East Coast’: When LIGO Might Have Been in the Blueberry Barrens of Maine,” Isis 116, no. 3 (2025). https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/736886.
• Tiffany Nichols, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Discerning Signal from Noise in the Expanded Laboratory Environment.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 54, no. 3 (2024): 335–364. doi: 10.1525/hsns.2024.54.3.335.

Selected collaborative authorship publications:

• (co-author/contributor) Yakushina, Yana, et al., “National approaches to the protection of Dark and Quiet Skies.” Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union Symposia and Colloquia, Vol. 20, Astronomy and Satellite Constellations: Pathways Forward (2026): 171-179. doi: 10.1017/S1743921324000838 (for contributions in research and legal and historical analysis of international law and policy concerning dark and quiet skies)
• (co-author/contributor) Rotola, Giuliana, et al., “Astronomy and satellite constellations: an international lens.” Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union Symposia and Colloquia, Vol. 20, Astronomy and Satellite Constellations: Pathways Forward (2026): 164-170. doi: 10.1017/S1743921324000863 (for contributions in research and legal and historical analysis of international law and policy concerning satellite constellations).

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