Rolf- Dieter Heuer is CERN’s next Director General

Physics Today: The CERN Council has appointed Rolf- Dieter Heuer to succeed Robert Aymar as CERN’s Director General. Since 2004 Heuer has been the research director for particle and astroparticle physics at Germany’s DESY laboratory in Hamburg. “Heuer has worked tirelessly for DESY as Germany’s main particle physics laboratory, while at the same time strengthening links between DESY, the German University system and CERN,” said President of the CERN council Torsten Ãkesson. “This spirit of collaboration will be a valuable asset to CERN as we move into LHC operation, develop strategic options for the long- term scientific program, and develop collaboration with the European national laboratories and institutes.” Heuer worked at CERN between 1984 to 1998 for the OPAL collaboration at the Large Electron Positron collider (LEP) research facility. On leaving CERN, 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. He will start at CERN just as the first results from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider become available."This is a very exciting time for particle physics,” says 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."Heuer will start a five- year term from 1 January 2009.see also ScienceNNOW