Rolf-Dieter Heuer, CERN’s next Director General

Currently Research Director for particle and astroparticle physics at Germany’s DESY laboratory in Hamburg, Professor Heuer will serve a five-year term, taking office on 1 January 2009.

The CERN Council has appointed Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer to succeed Dr Robert Aymar as CERN’s Director-General. Professor Heuer will serve a five-year term, taking office on 1 January 2009.

Currently Research Director for particle and astroparticle physics at Germany’s DESY laboratory in Hamburg, a post that he took up in 2004, Rolf-Dieter Heuer is no stranger to CERN. From 1984 to 1998, he was a staff member at the Laboratory, working for the OPAL collaboration at the Large Electron Positron collider. From 1994 to 1998, he was the collaboration’s spokesman.

"This is a very exciting time for particle physics," said Heuer. "To become CERN’s Director-General for the early years of LHC operation is a great honour, a great challenge, and probably the best job in physics research today. I’m looking forward to working with CERN’s community of personnel and researchers from around the world as we embark on this great adventure."

Rolf-Dieter Heuer obtained his doctorate in 1977 from the University of Heidelberg. Much of his career has been involved with the construction and operation of large particle detector systems for studying electron positron collisions. On leaving CERN in 1998, he took up a professorship at the University of Hamburg, where he established a group working on preparations for experiments at a possible future electron-positron collider. On taking up his appointment at DESY in 2004, Heuer was responsible for research at the HERA accelerator, DESY’s participation in the LHC and R&D for a future electron-positron collider.