idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
As of 1 January, Prof. Robert Feidenhans’l is the Chairman of the Management Board of the European XFEL GmbH. The 58-year old physicist comes from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. The European XFEL Council, the highest organ of the non-profit corporation, appointed Feidenhans’l as successor to Prof. Massimo Altarelli in September 2016.
Robert Feidenhans’l studied at Aarhus University and earned his doctorate in the area of surface physics, from which nanophysics developed. He worked at Risø National Laboratory in various scientific and leading positions from 1983 until 2005, when he moved to the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. Feidenhans’l says that he is both honoured and very excited to have the opportunity to lead the European XFEL into successful operation, which is scheduled to start in the second half of 2017.
Feidenhans’l’s predecessor Prof. Massimo Altarelli retired in December at the age of 68. Since the founding of European XFEL GmbH in 2009, he led the non-profit corporation that is building the European XFEL and that will operate the facility from 2017 on, and he took a leading role in the development of the of the project. Prof. Lars Börjesson, the Vice Chairman of the European XFEL Council, said at Altarelli’s retirement in December: “The achievement by Massimo Altarelli to take the brave science and technology visions of the X-ray free-electron laser to reality through scientific leadership of the technical design and construction all the way to close to operation is outstanding. The member states of European XFEL, represented in the Council, are most grateful and impressed by the leadership and achievements of Massimo Altarelli.” In the future, Altarelli will dedicate himself again to science and research at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg.
The European XFEL Management Board consists of two managing directors, Prof. Robert Feidenhans’l and Administrative Director Claudia Burger, as well as three scientific directors, Prof. Serguei Molodtsov, Thomas Tschentscher, and Andreas S. Schwarz.
About European XFEL
The European XFEL, currently being commissioned in the Hamburg area, is an international research facility of superlatives: 27 000 X-ray flashes per second and a brilliance that is a billion times higher than that of the best conventional X-ray sources will open up completely new opportunities for science. Research groups from around the world will be able to map the atomic details of viruses, decipher the molecular composition of cells, take three-dimensional “photos” of the nanoworld, “film” chemical reactions, and study processes such as those occurring deep inside planets. The construction and operation of the facility is entrusted to the European XFEL GmbH, a non-profit company that cooperates closely with the research centre DESY and other organizations worldwide. The company, which has a workforce of about 280 employees, expects to start user operation of the facility in the second half of 2017. With construction and commissioning costs of 1.22 billion euro (at 2005 price levels) and a total length of 3.4 kilometres, the European XFEL is one of the largest and most ambitious European research projects to date. At present, 11 countries have signed the European XFEL convention: Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Contact:
Bernd Ebeling
bernd.ebeling@xfel.eu
+49 40 8998 6921
http://www.xfel.eu
http://media.xfel.eu/XFELmediabank/?l=en&c=15067 Pictures
Criteria of this press release:
Journalists
Biology, Chemistry, Physics / astronomy
transregional, national
Personnel announcements
English
You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.
You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).
Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.
You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).
If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).
