ATLAS celebrating the International Women's day!

8 March 2010 | By

Today ATLAS celebrates the role of women in physics its own way. ATLAS has encouraged its staff and users to place as many women as possible on shift in the control room and to serve as guides for official visits. These women are well qualified and trained in the corresponding tasks. The result can not be better described than in the message of Rolf Heuer, CERN Director General:

"The fact that we can do this easily may come as a surprise to those who don’t know us better, but it’s no surprise to me. Curiosity, the main prerequisite for being a researcher, is a shared characteristic of all mankind and that’s reflected in the CERN community. Men and women from all over the world come here to pursue their research, and the diversity they bring is one of our greatest assets."

Women in ATLAS control room. (Image: ATLAS Collaboration)
The message to be conveyed to all young women interested in particle physics and high technology, is that they are welcome in the field as physicists, engineers and computer scientists. The achievement of having the control room with almost all shifts covered by women shows not only that we are enough women in ATLAS collaboration to run the detector but that particle physics is a field where women play an active role at the forefront of experimental research.