Rolf-Dieter Heuer served as the Director General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN from 2009 to 2015 inclusive.
Much of his career has been involved with the construction and operation of large particle detector systems for studying electron-positron collisions. On leaving CERN in 1998, he took up a professorship at the University of Hamburg, where he established a group working on preparations for experiments at a possible future electron-positron linear collider. On taking up his appointment as research director for particle and astroparticle physics at DESY in 2004, Heuer was responsible for research at the HERA accelerator, DESY’s participation in the LHC and R&D for a future electron-positron collider.