Professor Steven Lowette from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) has been appointed as physics coordinator of the CMS experiment at CERN starting September 2026, marking the first time a Belgian researcher will hold this prestigious role.
The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors built on the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, known as CERN in Switzerland and France.
Lowette will share his role as physics coordinator with a colleague and bear responsibility for the scientific output of the experiment, which involves more than 3,300 physicists from 58 countries. "The physics coordinator plays a crucial role in the top management of the CMS experiment," Lowette explained, adding that their goal is to enable researchers to analyse data and produce high-quality results.
The VUB professor described the upcoming period as particularly significant and enriching. "I will start my mandate with an enormous dataset that is still largely unexplored," he said. During the recent Run-3 phase, the CMS experiment recorded about twice as many particle collisions compared to the previous campaign.
Over the coming years, CMS will focus on studying rare decays of the Higgs boson, investigating dark matter, and analysing the properties of the top quark. By 2030, CERN is also preparing for a major upgrade of the particle accelerator.
