Congratulations to Dr Joël Mesot for his appointment as President of ETH-Zurich

The ILL and its staff congratulate Professor Joël Mesot most warmly for his appointment as President of ETH-Zurich, one of the most prestigious universities in the world. For the last ten years he has been the highly successful director of Switzerland's Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) in Villigen.

It's something of a homecoming for Joël Mesot, as it was at ETH that he started his studies in physics. But it was at the ILL that he prepared his thesis on solid-state physics, which he defended in 1992 (a neutron diffraction study of the influence of a crystal field on the ion Er³⁺ in high critical temperature superconducting systems).

Joël Mesot has always been particularly appreciated at the ILL, both for his personal qualities and for his scientific expertise. We wish him great success with his new responsibilities.