Swiss State Secretary visits CERN

The new Swiss State Secretary for Education and Research recently visited CERN.

Peter Jenni, the spokesperson for ATLAS, gave Mauro Dell’Ambrogio, the new Swiss State Secretary for Education and Research, a tour of ATLAS and the LHC tunnel.

On 2 April, the newly appointed Swiss State Secretary for Education and Research, Mauro Dell’Ambrogio, was welcomed to CERN by Director-General Robert Aymar. On arrival the Swiss minister was given a guided tour of ATLAS and the adjoining LHC tunnel by Peter Jenni, the ATLAS spokesperson.

Dr Dell’Ambrogio was then greeted by Swiss scientists and attended presentations by young post doc physicists about Swiss contributions to CMS and LHCb, in particular their work concerning hardware contribution and data analysis. There are 120 physicists from Swiss universities working on CERN’s experiments, and many more Swiss people working at CERN in other departments due to Switzerland’s special position as a host state.

Also before lunch, Ulrich Straumann, chairman of CHIPP (the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics) and a member of the LHCb collaboration, gave a short presentation about CHIPP and its commitment to CERN. "Swiss science profits strongly from being a host state of the world’s largest centre for particle physics. Long-term and predictable funding support for large scientific projects is very important," he explained.

After lunch, Dr Dell’Ambrogio signed the CERN guest book before visiting the LHC Computing Grid and the Computer Centre.