CERN Council appoints Fabiola Gianotti for second term of office as CERN Director General

06 November 2019

President of the CERN Council, Ursula Bassler and Director-General of CERN, Fabiola Gianotti (image: CERN).

CERN: Press Releases

Geneva, 6 November 2019.
At its 195^th Session today, the CERN Council selected Fabiola Gianotti, as the Organization’s next Director-General, for her second term of office. The appointment will be formalised at the December Session of the Council, and Gianotti’s new five-year term of office will begin on 1 January 2021. This is the first time in CERN’s history that a Director-General has been appointed for a full second term.

“I’m delighted to see Fabiola Gianotti re-appointed for a second term of office. With her at the helm, CERN will continue to benefit from her strong leadership and experience, especially for important upcoming projects such as the High-Luminosity LHC, implementation of the European Strategy for Particle Physics, and the construction of the Science Gateway,” said President of the CERN Council, Ursula Bassler. “During her first term, she excelled in leading our diverse and international scientific organisation, becoming a role model, especially for women in science”.

Fabiola Gianotti interviewed by Rosalba Nattero

"I am deeply grateful to the CERN Council for their renewed trust. It is a great privilege and a huge responsibility,” said CERN Director-General, Fabiola Gianotti. “The following years will be crucial for laying the foundations of CERN’s future projects and I am honoured to have the opportunity to work with the CERN Member States, Associate Member States, other international partners and the worldwide particle physics community.”

Gianotti has been CERN’s Director-General since 1 January 2016. She received her Ph.D. in experimental particle physics from the University of Milano in 1989 and has been a research physicist at CERN since 1994. She was the leader of the ATLAS experiment’s collaboration from March 2009 to February 2013, including the period in which the LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS announced the discovery of the Higgs boson. The discovery was recognised in 2013 with the Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded to theorists François Englert and Peter Higgs. Gianotti is a member of many international committees, and has received numerous prestigious awards. She was the first woman to become the Director-General of CERN.