Rolf-Dieter Heuer

Professor Heuer is the Chair of the European Commission’s Group of Chief ScientificAdvisors which provides independent and high quality scientific advice to the College ofEuropean Commissioners.

Professor Heuer is an experimental particle physicist and has been CERN Director-Generalsince January 2009. His mandate, ending December 2015, is characterised by the start of theLarge Hadron Collider (LHC) 2009 as well as its energy increase 2015, the discovery of theH-Boson and the geographical enlargement of CERN Membership. He also actively engagedCERN in promoting the importance of science and STEM education for the sustainabledevelopment of the society.

From 2004 to 2008, Prof. Heuer was research director for particle and astroparticle physics atthe DESY laboratory, Germany where he oriented the particle physics groups towards LHCby joining both large experiments, ATLAS and CMS. He has initiated restructuring andfocusing of German high energy physics at the energy frontier with particular emphasis onLHC (Helmholtz Alliance “Physics at the Terascale”). Since April 2016, he is President of theGerman Physical Society. He is President of the Council of SESAME (Synchrotron-Light forExperimental Science and Applications in the Middle East).

Prof. Heuer has published over 500 scientific papers and holds many Honorary Degrees fromuniversities in Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada. He is Member of several Academies ofSciences in Europe, in particular of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, andHonorary Member of the European Physical Society. He received the Grand Cross 1st class ofthe Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and was appointed Chevalier de laLégion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by the French Republic.