Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti is first woman boss to lead CERN

Zee Media Bureau/Shruti Saxena

New Delhi: Eminent Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti has been chosen to serve as the 16th director-general of the CERN particle-physics laboratory.

The 54-year-old physicist was picked amongst three candidates at a meeting of the centre’s ruling council by a team of representatives of its 20 member states.

Interestingly, Gianotti is the first woman - and fourth Italian - to hold the position. She will take up the post in January 2016.

Gianotti joined CERN in 1994 and in 2009, became project leader of the Atlas collaboration, one of two teams working separately to spot the Higgs in the LHC data.