The New „Lord of the Rings“ – Rolf-Dieter Heuer to be CERN Director General

DESY Research Director Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer has been appointed to be next Director General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN. CERN Council, the representation of the 20 CERN member states, announced his election in today’s open session at CERN.

Rolf-Dieter Heuer will be the successor of Dr. Robert Aymar and is to take office on 1 January 2009. Rolf-Dieter Heuer has great expectations for his new task: “The Large Hadron Collider LHC—the largest particle accelerator in the world—will start running at CERN in 2008. It will open up a completely new era in particle physics. I am looking forward to seeing great discoveries in the exciting years ahead.”

DESY is part of a Germany-wide particle physics collaboration participating in the experiments at the LHC. “DESY plays an important role both in Germany and worldwide, and will continue to do so in the future,” Heuer said. “With the participation in the LHC, core contributions to the planned International Linear Collider ILC and the Helmholtz-Alliance “Physics at the Terascale”, DESY is continuing to strengthen its central role in particle physics. I am looking forward to a new phase of good collaboration between CERN and DESY.”

DESY Press Release