European physicist receives US medal in physics

Former CERN Director wins prestigious American prize

College Park, MD (March 30,2004)--Science progresses quickly and efficiently in large part because researchers cooperate on an international scale. Recognizing this fact, the American Institute of Physics (AIP) honors a non-US scientist periodically with the AIP Tate Medal for International Leadership in Physics. At the upcoming April Meeting of the American Physical Society in Denver, AIP will present the Tate Medal to Professor Herwig Franz Schopper, currently at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Professor Schopper will receive the Tate Medal along with a certificate and a check for ten thousand dollars.

A distinguished nuclear and particle physicist, Professor Schopper has been a key figure at CERN, the world's largest accelerator facility. Serving as CERN's sole Director-General from 1981-88, he oversaw the successful construction of the Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP) and the first successful tests of the four LEP detectors. Prior to his directorship as CERN, he was Full Professor at the University of Hamburg, and Chairman of the Directorate of the DESY accelerator facility in Germany. He has served as president of both the German Physical Society and the European Physical Society. Since 1991, he has been on the board of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia.

Professor Schopper has been very active in promoting physics in small and developing countries. He is the president of the UNESCO SESAME Council, which is helping efforts to bring about the first synchrotron light source facility in Jordan. He is a member of the Founding Committee for the Research University at Cyprus.

Professor Schopper was born in 1924 in Landskron, Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. He received a Diploma in Physics in 1949 and a doctoral degree in 1951 from the University of Hamburg in Germany. He subsequently worked as a Research Fellow with Lise Meitner and Otto R. Frisch, two pioneers in the study of nuclear fission. From 1950 to 1961 he worked with Robert R. Wilson, a major designer of particle accelerators who went on to become founding director at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois.

Professor Schopper has authored more than 200 scientific papers and articles for newspapers and magazines on many areas in physics, including optics, thin metal layers, nuclear physics, elementary particle detector development, and accelerator technology. He also has written and edited books on a variety of subjects including particle accelerators, radioactive decays, matter and antimatter, and nuclear structure.

The certificate presented to Professor Schopper reads:

"The AIP Tate Medal for International Leadership in Physics is awarded to Herwig F. Schopper in recognition of his outstanding leadership and tireless efforts in building wide international collaborations in physics."

The award is named for John Torrence Tate, in honor of his service to the physics community.

More information

Martha Heil
American Institute of Physics
301-209-3088