ATLAS Collaboration Members in Discussion
A group of ATLAS physicists in the Ohio State University office discussing a proton collision event display. (Image: CERN)
CMS
Technicians working inside the CMS detector in 2008 (Image: CERN)

Cooperation between nations, universities and scientists is the driving force behind CERN’s research.

As of 2017, more than 17 500 people from around the world work together to push the limits of knowledge. CERN’s staff members, numbering around 2600, take part in the design, construction and operation of the research infrastructure. They also contribute to the preparation and operation of the experiments, as well as to the analysis of the data gathered for a vast community of users, comprising over 12 200 scientists of 110 nationalities, from institutes in more than 70 countries.

Biographies

Director-General
Director for Accelerators and Technology
Director for Research and Computing
Director for International Relations
Director for Finance and Human Resources

Anciens Directeurs généraux du CERN

2016-2020

Directrice générale : Fabiola Gianotti

2009-2015

Directeur général : Rolf-Dieter Heuer

2004-2008

Directeur général : Robert Aymar

1999-2003

Directeur général : Luciano Maiani

1994-1999

Directeur général : Christopher Llewellyn Smith

1989-1994

Directeur général : Carlo Rubbia

1981-1988

Directeur général : Herwig Schopper

1976-1980

Directeur général pour la recherche : Léon Van Hove

Directeur général exécutif : John Adams

1971-1975

Directeur général du Laboratoire I à Meyrin (Suisse) : Willibald Jentschke

Directeur général du Laboratoire II à Prévessin (France) : John Adams

1966-1970

Directeur général : Bernard Gregory

1961-1966

Directeur général : Victor Weisskopf

1960-1961

Directeur général : John Adams

1955-1960

Directeur général : Cornelis Bakker

1954-1955

Directeur général : Felix Bloch

1952-1954

Secrétaire général : Edoardo Amaldi

 

Computer Centre 2017
Computer Centre 2017 (Image: CERN)
I learned a lot in my training at CERN — and not only technically. Here I got the courage to take on the impossible and to win. I lived during one of the most interesting half-centuries of particle physics — and now in biology, biomedicine, pharmaceutical research one encounters the same problems in integrating IT with experimental research. At CERN, I learned a few basic questions that work universally: What is it for? Why do we need it? Will it work? And if you make something useful that works, it will surely be praised and adopted.

Paolo Zanella came to the CERN computing group in 1962, just three years after the first computer had arrived. He later was head of the Data Handling Division for 13 years, before becoming professor at the University of Geneva.