Activating projects

You may have noticed a dashed box in CERN’s organization chart, at the level of the Directorate, with three names inside. It’s the Directorate Office, which aims, above all, at improving communication across the sectors and departments. The Bulletin had an enjoyable coffee with its three members.

Isabel Béjar Alonso, Ewa Rondio and Emmanuel Tsesmelis are all physicists with long experience at CERN and in the particle physics community. Following the example of the DESY Laboratory, but with no previous examples in the history of CERN, Rolf Heuer wanted the three of them to form the Directorate Office. "Our role is to support the Director-General and the three Directors", explains Emmanuel. "We have no executive task but we will advise them, providing input when they have to make decisions. We will collect useful information from across the Lab and will report to them. We will also propose new ideas and initiatives and follow up on their decisions, making sure they are implemented". Another important goal is to improve communication at all levels. "We aim at improving the communication flow and collaboration across the sectors (Research and Scientific Computing, Accelerators and Technology, Administration and General Infrastructure) to ensure that there is no lack of information", confirms Isabel. "In this way, we hope to create new synergies and speed up the lengthy decision-making processes".

"A practical example of our role within the Organization", continues Isabel, "is the organization of the ‘New opportunities in the physics landscape’ workshop, which will be held at CERN in May. This follows up on the wish of the DG to have more diversity in the physics programme beyond the LHC". "The workshop is a tool to collect new ideas for innovative physics projects, mainly accelerator-based but not only", specifies Ewa. "We will invite speakers from all over the world to come to CERN, present their local experience and then discuss with the audience the future perspectives, such as what is suitable for our Laboratory and what can be done elsewhere". "The organization of the workshop is a small but good example of the role of the Directorate Office because it requires the collaboration of the Director-General and the Directors to exchange information and ideas with us", explains Emmanuel. "In general, we can say that they can delegate to us some of the work needed to put their vision into practice".

In order to accomplish its mission, the Directorate Office will count on the trust of the departments. "We are all very open, and people can talk to us", says Isabel. "Combining our working hours, the office is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m." "We will adapt to the needs of the Laboratory; it might be easier for people to come and talk to us instead of going to see the Director-General", adds Ewa. "And if anyone at CERN wants advice from us, or would like to bring an issue to the attention of the Directorate, they can do it through us", confirms Emmanuel.

All three have just started their common mandate but they already speak in unison. Although they are all physicists, they come from different backgrounds and, in the past, have specialized in different activities. This will enrich the performance of the Office as a whole. "Having been a user for many years until this recent appointment", says Ewa, "I have the view and the experience of the thousands of scientists that use the CERN facilities every day but are not CERN employees". "With my experience in administration and human-resources-related matters", adds Isabel, "I will bring a human touch and keep a careful eye on funds and expenditure". "And I will particularly look at the scientific value of the proposed actions", concludes Emmanuel.

The next five years at the Laboratory will be among the most exciting in its history but, alongside the natural excitement, CERN will certainly have to face new challenges. How do the three imagine CERN at the end of their mandate? What will have changed in five years? "First of all, the LHC will have produced many interesting physics discoveries that will have changed our knowledge of the Universe", replies Emmanuel. "Besides the LHC, we will have a richer Lab where new ideas will have flourished". "I hope that in five years’ time CERN will be more open to the physics community at large and also to society through more effective knowledge transfer", adds Ewa. "CERN will again be a magnet attracting the best experts in physics and technology from all over the world", concludes Isabel.

Isabel Béjar Alonso

At CERN since 1996, when she was only 24, Isabel is an applied physicist whose interests soon turned towards project management and human resources matters.

Since her involvement in the activities of the Technical Department (originally ST, then TS), she worked on resources and administration management with roles such as contract manager, Departmental EVM officer and quality manager, and on technical roles such as TS Technical Infrastructure Coordinator for ATLAS and coordinator for the reinstallation of the LHC cryogenic line (QRL) on Sector 7-8.

She represented the TS department on the Students and Fellows Recruitment Committees, was Department Training Officer and represented the management in the Five-yearly review in 2004. As Human Resources Officer she participated in the restructuring of groups and units within the TS Department, implementing financial plans and cost-saving procedures.

More recently she became the Head of the TS Administration and Safety Group.

Ewa Rondio

Ewa’s specialization is experimental particle physics. Before taking on this appointment at CERN, she worked at the Soltan Institute for Nuclear Studies in Poland. She also has wide and long experience of teaching physics to students at the University of Warsaw.

Ewa has been involved in many experiments at CERN (NA37, NA47, NA58, and, more recently, NA61) and in many other laboratories around the world, such as Nikhef and Gran Sasso. She was a CERN scientific associate from 1996 to 1998 but has made frequent visits to the Lab since 1983. In 2005 she contributed to preparations for Poland’s participation in the T2K experiment in Japan.

Ewa has represented Poland on the ECFA Restricted Committee since 2005 and in 2006 was a member of the preparatory group for the European Strategy document for particle physics of the CERN Council.

Emmanuel Tsesmelis

Emmanuel is an experimental particle physicist with a career spanning scientific research, teaching, science communication, external relations and management at CERN and at several universities.

He undertook his studies in Athens, Melbourne and Dortmund. At the University of Dortmund he worked on the UA2 experiment at the SPS Collider and specifically on the search for charged Higgs production through the decay of the top quark.

From 1993 to 1998, Emmanuel worked on the CERN neutrino programme as a member of the NOMAD and SPY Collaborations and on the design stages of CNGS with specific for the prediction and experimental measurement of the neutrino beam.

Emmanuel also served as SPS and PS Physics Co-ordinator in the period 1997-1998 before joining the CMS Collaboration in 1998. In 2005 he was appointed Head of the LHC Experimental Areas. As of 2004, he has been advising the Director-General on relations with non-Member States, and has recently also served as spokesperson of "the Nine". Looking to CERN’s future projects, in 2008 has led of the CLIC machine-detector interface working group.

Emmanuel also has interests in teaching and science communication, most recently at the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science at the University of Oxford and Royal Holloway University of London.