Mark Coles, MBA 80

Mark Coles counts something pretty impressive on his list of career successes: a better understanding of the universe. 

His journey started as a Berkeley physics grad student working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he heard complaints about poorly managed large research projects. 

“So as a young, idealistic kid, I thought, ‘Well, I heard a lot about MBAs. Maybe there’s something about business management that could shed some light on that,’” Coles says.

With the encouragement of Haas Dean Earl Cheit, Coles combined his physics PhD with an MBA focused on management of a high-energy physics experiment. 

It all came together when he led initial construction of what would become the groundbreaking $1.1 billion National Science Foundation-funded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). LIGO’s lead scientists won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for being the first to detect gravitational waves, which Einstein predicted but thought could never be captured. Previously, scientists only had light to study the universe, or the equivalent of sight. LIGO gave scientists the equivalent of ears. 

After his success with LIGO, Coles oversaw construction and operations of major NSF projects—including the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, and enhancement of LIGO’s sensitivity. These three cutting-edge observatories, which cost billions, are unlocking the deepest secrets of space, time, and matter.

Though now retired, Coles’ contribution to our conception of the cosmos endures.

“LIGO’s discovery is something that will be in the history books, forever,” he says. “I’ll always be able to tell my family that I was part of that.” 

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