On January 1, 2016, Italian scientist Fabiola Gianotti took the helm as the new director-general at CERN, thus becoming the first woman to lead the prestigious multinational laboratory in Geneva on the Swiss-French border, generally recognized as the greatest particle physics research center in the world.
Fifty-three-year-old Gianotti will be the 16th person to lead the European Center for Nuclear Research, the third Italian and the first woman. This is no small feat in a field – physics - that tends to be male- dominated.
In 2012, Gianotti headed 3,000 scientists and one of two independent teams that found evidence of the Higgs boson, the elusive particle that physicists had been seeking for half a century, using CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. “It’s not only a great scientific endeavor, but a unique human adventure,” she has said of the discovery, quick to share credit for it. “Working with so many people from all over the world is extremely enriching and stimulating.” That year, she was a runner-up to U.S. President Barack Obama as Time’s Person of the Year.
Born in Milan, Gianotti received a Ph.D in experimental particle physics from the University of Milan in 1989. Since 1996, she has been a research physicist in the Physics Department of CERN, working on several CERN experiments. She is among the 26 scientists who have been appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board of the United Nations.
Gianotti has been included among the Top 100 most influential and inspirational women by The Guardian and Forbes, and we surely are inspired by her talents, intelligence and dedication.
What a great way for Italy to begin the new year!
