At its 23rd meeting in November 2013, the SESAME Council appointed Giorgio Paolucci Scientific Director of SESAME.
He took up this position in January 2014, joining Erhard Huttel (Technical Director since January 2013) as a member of the SESAME senior management team, as well as Yasser Khalil (Administrative Director since May 2008) and Khaled Toukan, who has been Director since the start of the project. He replaced Hafeez Hoorani who served as Scientific Director from January 2007 to December 2013 when he oversaw the development of SESAME’s ‘day-one’ beamlines and laid the foundation of the initial scientific programme.
Professor Paolucci has been responsible for the international projects and user programmes at the Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A. in Trieste (Italy) since March 2011 and a member of the laboratory’s Strategic Committee. He joined the Italian laboratory in 1989 and has in succession held the positions of Group Leader, Director of the Experimental Division, and Research Project Coordinator. He grew up in Rome (Italy) and graduated from the University Roma I La Sapienza with a degree in physics and a PhD in condensed matter physics. After working as a consultant in the Electron Spectroscopies group at the University of Calabria (Cosenza, Italy), he held a two-year scholarship at the Fritz Haber Institut der Max Planck Gesellschaft in Berlin (West Germany) following which he became a lecturer at the International School of Advanced Studies of Trieste and a consultant at the AREA (Area per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica) Science Park in Trieste.
He brings with him immense experience in the design and construction of beamlines, as well as research using a wide range of surface science techniques, and also important experience in creating software for experiments with synchrotron radiation, and the use of electron optics and electronics for electron analysers and detectors.
Professor Paolucci, who in the first months will be devoting 50% of his time to SESAME, this reaching 100% as from June 2014, will direct the planning and development of the science programme of SESAME, oversee the design and construction of SESAME’s Phase 1 beamlines, and provide leadership for the formulation of policies to actively engage users’ participation in the development and implementation of the SESAME science programme.
When he became Technical Director of SESAME in 2013, Dr Huttel had been head of the ANKA accelerators at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany since 2002, a position he still holds (now for 50% of his time). He took over from Dr Amor Nadji, one of the accelerator scientists who constructed the SOLEIL synchrotron in France, who, during his term as Technical Director of SESAME (August 2007 – December 2012), directed the detailed engineering design of the SESAME accelerators and the full commissioning of the microtron, including the microtron beam extracted from its final orbit with the full energy of 22.5MeV.
Dr Huttel grew up in Ehringshausen (Germany) and graduated from the University of Giessen with a degree and PhD in physics. He then held positions at the Institute of Experimental Physics and the Institute of Nuclear Physics, both at the University of Giessen, and the Cyclotron Laboratory at the Karlsruhe Research Center, all in Germany, before becoming Leading Scientist at the ANKA Synchrotron Radiation Source and then Leading Scientist at the Australian Synchrotron.
He has brought with him to SESAME vast experience in the construction of electron accelerators, particularly the design and commissioning of vacuum, magnets, radio frequency and frontends.
Since he joined SESAME in 2013, Dr Huttel has been directing installation of the booster, which is expected to be fully commissioned with the extraction of the first beam during the first six months of 2014, and construction of the new 2.5 GeV storage ring.