Italian physicist appointed Director-General of CERN

In early November, Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti was appointed Director-General of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). With a five-year term, she is the first woman to take the helm of the institution, succeeding Rolf Heuer in January 2016. The FCT welcomes this appointment to the leadership of an institution that is key to the internationalization of research in Portugal. Fabiola Gianotti is well known to the Portuguese particle physics community, particularly due to the participation of national teams in the ATLAS experiment.

A researcher at CERN since 1987, Fabiola Gianotti led the ATLAS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) between March 2009 and February 2013. In 2012, the ATLAS experiment was one of those that announced to the world the discovery of the much sought-after Higgs boson, a discovery that led to François Englert and Peter Higgs being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics the following year. ATLAS involves more than 3,000 scientists from 174 institutions in 38 countries, including Portugal.

Agnieszka Zalewska, Chair of the Council that elected Fabiola Gianotti, stated that "it was her vision for the future of CERN as the world's leading particle accelerator laboratory, combined with her in-depth knowledge of both CERN and the field of particle physics" that led to the decision.

Several Portuguese companies and research centers collaborate with CERN, ensuring privileged access to cutting-edge equipment and technology for experimentation and maximizing the internationalization factor of the research they develop.

Portuguese collaboration in this infrastructure is decentralized. In Lisbon, scientists from the Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics (LIP), the Institute of Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion (IPFN), the Center for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies (C2TN), and the Center for Theoretical Particle Physics (CFTP) participate in collaborative projects with CERN. In Guimarães, the Institute for Nanostructures, Nanomodelling and Nanofabrication (i3N) and in Aveiro, the Centre for Research in Ceramics and Composite Materials (CICECO) also have teams conducting research in collaboration with CERN.