Fabiola Gianotti is an experimental particle physicist and the current Director-General of CERN, home to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — the largest particle accelerator in the world. Born in 1960, Gianotti focused much more on the arts and humanities than on science in her early studies. At school she learned very little maths and physics, instead studying literature, ancient Greek, Latin, art, history of art and philosophy, as well as music to a very high standard — she almost became a classical pianist. However, she was a curious child and had a love of nature from her father, a geologist.
Along with this desire to understand the world, Gianotti was inspired by Marie Curie and the way that science was such an integral part of Curie’s life. Therefore, she chose to pursue a career in physics, completing a PhD in particle physics at the University of Milan in 1989.
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