31 March 2025

Photo: DESY, Jörg Müller

Professor Beate Heinemann.

Professor Beate Heinemann is to become the new head of the research centre DESY. On 1 April 2025, she will take over as the Chairperson of DESY’s Board of Directors, to which she already belongs in her capacity as Director for Particle Physics. Beate Heinemann will be taking over from Helmut Dosch, who has presided over the centre for more than 16 years. This will make her the first woman to head the research centre.

“Every one of our research areas is already playing in the Champions League,” says Beate Heinemann. “Together they form a unique melting pot for multidisciplinary cutting-edge research and technology. Along with all the employees at DESY, I would like to further expand the centre’s scientific and innovative performance and make decisive contributions to science and society, in particular through our forward-looking project PETRA IV, the world’s best X-ray source.” 

Volkmar Dietz (BMBF), Chairman of the DESY Foundation Council and head of the committee that decided on the appointment after an international call for applications, explains: “DESY is an internationally outstanding research centre and a flagship for excellent research in Germany. In Beate Heinemann, we have been able to recruit a distinguished researcher and an experienced research manager to head the centre. With her international experience and ideas that point the way forward, I am convinced that she is going to lead the research centre into a brilliant future. However, my special thanks also go to Helmut Dosch. He has done an outstanding job in positioning DESY strategically and making it ready to face the future.”

Helmut Dosch says: “I am delighted to hand over the chairmanship of the Board of Directors to Beate Heinemann. During her time as Director of Particle Physics, I found her to be an inspired expert with a wealth of experience, and we worked together in a spirit of trust. I wish Beate every success and the necessary pinch of good luck in her leadership of the research centre.”

“With its unique combination of photon, particle, astroparticle and accelerator research, the DESY research centre plays a key role not only within the Helmholtz Association, but also throughout Europe,” says Otmar D. Wiestler, President of the Helmholtz Association. “Beate Heinemann is one of the world´s leading scientists in experimental particle physics. We value her as an outstanding leader with an excellent international network.”

The particle physicist Beate Heinemann was born and raised in Hamburg. She studied at the University of Hamburg and obtained her Ph.D. there in 1999. From 2000 to 2006, she carried out research at the University of Liverpool as a Fellow of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and as a Royal Society University Fellow. In 2006, she became Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a scientist at the adjacent multidisciplinary Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In 2016, she returned to Germany as lead scientist at DESY and professor at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. Beate Heinemann has been Director of Particle Physics at DESY since February 2022 and professor at the University of Hamburg since 2023.

Beate Heinemann has made significant contributions to particle physics through her research in international experiments at high-energy particle accelerators: the H1 experiment at DESY, the CDF experiment at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), and the ATLAS experiment at the world’s largest accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN research centre in Geneva. In all these experiments, she has held leadership positions. From 2013 to 2017, she was deputy head of the ATLAS collaboration, which comprises around 3000 people.

Beate Heinemann is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Zurich last year.