On November 6, the CERN Council chose British physicist Mark Thomson as the organization’s next director general. The formal appointment will take place during the December session of Council and Mark Thomson’s five-year term will begin on January 1, 2026.
“Mark Thomson is a talented physicist, whose managerial experience will be valuable,” declared the current general director, Fabiola Gianotti, quoted in a press release. The document adds: “I have worked with him on various occasions in the past, and I am certain that he will make an excellent general manager. I will be happy to entrust him with the reins of this important position at the end of 2025.”
Fabiola Gianotti took office in 2016, becoming the first woman to head the world’s largest particle physics center, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.
Work for the Large Hadron Collider
Mark Thomson is currently executive chairman of the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the United Kingdom, a government agency responsible for carrying out research in astronomy, physics and space sciences. He also holds a chair in experimental particle physics at the University of Cambridge.
The future director devoted a large part of his career to CERN, where he initially contributed, in the 1990s, to precision measurements of the W and Z bosons. Working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), he was a member of the ATLAS collaboration.
To go further
The giant CERN collider, a major scientific project
Published on June 25, 2024 at 3:50 p.m. / Modified on June 25, 2024 at 5:26 p.m.
CERN’s Future Circular Collider (FCC) must succeed its current particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and come into operation in 2040. Still under study, this giant accelerator – 91 km long – should allow a better understanding of the fundamental properties of matter and constitutes a strategic challenge for Europe. It is the subject of heated debate, due to its staggering cost and its impact on the environment. Find a selection of our content on the subject:
A “future of revolutionary discoveries”
Mark Thomson is cited as an author in over a thousand publications and wrote a renowned particle physics textbook, “Modern Particle Physics,” used in universities around the world. He has also held leadership and oversight roles in research nationally and internationally, including being a delegate to the CERN Council for the United Kingdom since 2018.
“CERN’s mission is to elucidate the mysteries of the Universe, contributing to our collective quest for knowledge. CERN has a promising future ahead of groundbreaking research and discoveries that will define our understanding of physics, and, in doing so, inspire future generations of young scientists,” said Mark Thomson.
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