Robert Aymar was the

Director General A director general or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'' ) or general director is a senior executive (government), executive officer, often the chief executive offi ...

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

(2004–2008), serving a five-year term in that role. Aymar was born in 1936 in France. After studying at the ''

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

'', Robert Aymar entered the ''Corps des Poudres'' (a former government agency involved in basic and applied research). Following his secondment to the ''

Commissariat à l'énergie atomique The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission or CEA ( French: Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives), is a French public government-funded research organisation in the areas of energy, defense and securit ...

'' (CEA) in 1959, his career has been focused on fundamental research in plasma physics and its application in controlled thermonuclear fusion research. In 1977, Robert Aymar was appointed Head of the Tore Supra Project, to be constructed at

Cadarache Cadarache is the largest technological research and development centre for energy in Europe. It includes the CEA research activities and ITER. CEA Cadarache is one of the 10 research centres of the French Commission of Atomic and Alternative En ...

(France). In 1990, he was appointed Director of the ''Direction des Sciences de la Matière'' of the CEA, where he directed a wide range of basic research programmes, both experimental and theoretical. Robert Aymar has served on many Councils and Committees at national and international level, for example, the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL), the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF), and the Joint European Torus (JET). He also acted as chairman of the European Fusion Technology Steering Committee, and as a member of the

ITER ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ''iter'' meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy by replicating, on Earth ...

(International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) Technical Advisory Committee. He was appointed ITER Director in 1994 and International Team Leader in 2001. He chaired the international scientific committee that assessed CERN's

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundred ...

(LHC) and recommended it for approval in 1996. He also chaired the External Review Committee that was set up by the CERN Council in December 2001 to review the CERN programme. He succeeded

Luciano Maiani Luciano Maiani (born 16 July 1941, in Rome) is a Sammarinese physicist best known for his prediction of the charm quark with Sheldon Glashow and John Iliopoulos (the "GIM mechanism"). Academic history In 1964 Luciano Maiani received his degree in ...

as Director-General of CERN in January 2004. He was honoured in 2006 with the International

Global Energy Prize The Global Energy Prize is an international award in the field of energy industry which is given for ''"outstanding scientific research and scientific-technical developments in the field of energy which promote greater efficiency and environmental ...

, in 2011 with the National Order of the Legion of Honour of the French Republic.

References

People associated with CERN French physicists Living people 1936 births {{France-physicist-stub