Source: LAL
Content: Press Release
Date Issued: 21 October 2005
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Media Contact: Hélène Kerec, LAL Communication, +33 (0)1 64 46 85 22 kerec@lal.in2p3.fr

Guy Wormser has been named Director of the Accélérateur Linéaire Laboratory at Orsay (LAL), effective September 1st, 2005.
He succeeds Bernard D'Almagne.
 
Guy Wormser has joined LAL in 1977 as a freshly graduate of Paris Ecole Normale Supérieure. His master thesis on the liquid argon calorimeter endcap of CELLO, at DESY, was followed by a PhD on direct photon and charm photoproduction, in NA14 and NA14' experiments at CERN. He then stayed two years at SLAC, on the MARKII experiment, during the PEP and early SLC years, where he also worked on the SLC machine. Guy Wormser then joined the DELPHI experiment at CERN to work on the TPC and in the search of new particles and heavy flavour physics. At the end of LEP-I phase, he embarked on the PEP-II project and convinced a French community to join the forming BaBar collaboration, thus contributing to the novel era of worldwide collaborations at SLAC. He was responsible for the various LAL contributions: the electronics and parts of mechanics of the DIRC, the critical BaBar PID device and a miniTPC for PEP-II commissioning. From then on, his leadership extended to other areas: Machine Detector Interface in BaBar/PEP-II, Computing with the DataGRID project and the EGEE project at CERN. Member and chairman of numerous international committees, he was named Deputy Director of IN2P3 from 1999 to 2003 during the critical years of LHC construction. Interested by Computing issues of the LHC experiments and member of the LCG committees, he recently created and chairs a new ICFA panel devoted to International HEP Computing coordination. He also co-chairs the French GDE project for the ILC.

Guy Wormser will now devote his leadership to LAL. With more than 300 people, including 100 physicists, LAL is the largest laboratory of CNRS/IN2P3 devoted to particle physics and enjoys strong links with Paris XI University. It plays a major role, both at construction stage and in data analysis, in many HEP experiments, whether at CERN, in Atlas and LHCb, or in the US, in BaBar and D0, or at DESY, in H1. LAL is also involved in neutrino physics, with NEMO and OPERA, and has major contributions in Astroparticle and Cosmology, in the Auger, Planck Surveyor and VIRGO experiments. It is also a key participant in long term machine projects, like XFEL, ILC or CLIC where the LAL accelerator group is a major partner for R&D and construction, as it was for LEP.

“The feature of the laboratory is to conceive, build and operate large and sophisticated equipments   in the framework of international collaborations,” said Guy Wormser. “Keeping all regions of the world fully active and involved at the highest possible level in HEP is a key objective, and the diversity of the programs will help to proceed in a well balanced way.”

Under Guy Wormser's strong impulse, the laboratory will undoubtedly keep its impact on present and future research in the domain, in order to remain one of the main European centers in particle physics and cosmology, committed to excellence and international partnerships.