CERN Accelerating science

Dr Manuela Cirilli is currently the Medical Applications Advisor in CERN’s Knowledge Transfer (KT) group, and is an expert in the application of particle physics technologies in the healthcare domain – in particular in cancer radiotherapy and medical imaging. She also leads the Communication and Training section of the group. 
Manuela joined the KT group in 2010 as technical coordinator of a project on medical imaging, and has since then occupied various strategic roles at CERN, including as deputy KT group leader for 5 years. Prior to this, she has been a researcher in experimental particle physics, with an MSc and a PhD in particle physics and extensive experience in detector construction and commissioning, data analysis, and databases.

In parallel to her scientific career, Manuela has been engaging in science communication and popularisation since the early 2000s, for a variety of audiences and stakeholders of all ages, always actively involved in promoting STEM careers among young women and girls. This passion led her to also obtain a Master in Science Communication and Journalism, and to teach courses in science communication, science writing, and public speaking.

Atomic and nuclear physicist by training. Came to CERN in 2002 to do a PhD for the University of Mainz about properties of short-lived isotopes at the ISOLDE facility. Since then, took different roles at ISOLDE: post-doc in mass measurements, ISOLDE physics coordinator, and now CERN research staff, with a stunt as a professor at UNIGE. Her biological and medical activities started in 2015 with an ERC Grant on applying radiation-detected nuclear magnetic resonance. Since then, she started two medical projects, devoted to gamma-detected magnetic resonance imaging with long-lived Xe isotopes and to beta-detected magnetic resonance with PET isotopes.

Ling Wong an investor and entrepreneur, is passionate about the application of technology in society. She is currently General Partner of Sea Lane Ventures, an investment firm.

Lars Holm Nielsen is Head of Open Science Repositories at CERN IT where he leads Open Science services and projects for large-scale scholarly repositories. He built and grew Zenodo.org from a proof of concept to being the world's largest general-purpose research repository supporting researchers around the world in any discipline to share and preserve their research products. He further leads the 25 partners InvenioRDM open source repository platform, helping institutions and domains to provide Open Science services.

He has pioneered innovative solutions across research domains for research software citations as well as unlocking FAIR biodiversity data. He's work focuses on providing core enabling infrastructure for Open Science to help accelerate scientific discovery and ultimately improve how science is conducted.

Kristi Holmes is Professor of Preventive Medicine-Health and Biomedical Informatics and Director of Galter Health Sciences Library at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Her work focuses on the discovery and access of knowledge through collaborative computational and social initiatives, including the role of repositories to enable FAIR data practices and a vibrant sharing ecosystem. Dr. Holmes serves on the leadership team of the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS), where she directs evaluation and continuous improvement. She and her team have developed a robust assessment infrastructure of resources and expertise to support program evaluation and research impact assessment for a wide range of programs on the local and national level. She also serves as the Chief of Knowledge Management in the Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine and chairs the NIH Comparative Genomics Resource (CGR) Working Group through the National Library of Medicine Board of Regents. She brings extensive experience with highly cooperative technical information projects on the local, national, and international level. Throughout, she maintains a keen focus on equitable access to knowledge and meaningful impact. 

Juan Enriquez author and teacher on the economic impact of life sciences and brain research on business and society. Business leader and entrepreneur.  He is a bestselling author, a life sciences venture capitalist and a research affiliate at MIT’s synthetic neurobiology lab. He co-founded Excel Venture Management. Author and co-author of multiple bestsellers including As the Future Catches You: How Genomics Will Change Your Life, Work, Health, and Wealth (1999), The Untied States of America: Polarization, Fracturing and Our Future (2005), Evolving Ourselves: Redesigning Humanity One Gene at a Time (2015), and RIGHT/WRONG: How Technology Transforms Our Ethics (2020).  Works with the CEOs of a number of Fortune 50 global companies, as well as heads of state, on how to adapt to a world where the dominant language is shifting from the digital towards the language of life. A TED All-Star with ten TED talks on a variety of subjects, as well as dozens of TEDx talks. Serves on multiple for-profit boards as well as a variety of non-profits including The National Academy of Sciences, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, GBH, The Boston Science Museum, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center. He was the founding Director of the Harvard Business School's Life Sciences Project. He sailed around the world on an expedition that increased the number of know genes a hundredfold and was part of the peace commission that negotiated the cease fire with the Zapatistas. Graduated from Harvard with a B.A. and an M.B.A., both with honors. 

Dr Etiennette Auffray is senior physicist at CERN. She first came at CERN as a technical student in 1990, then continued as a PhD student and postdoc working on the R&D on inorganic scintillators for future homogeneous electromagnetic calorimetry at LHC. She became staff in 1999. She worked on the design, the construction and the installation of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter made of 75848 scintillating crystals of PWO and since 2009 on its operation and upgrade. Since 2010 she is the spokesperson of Crystal Clear Collaboration (RD18), an international collaboration working on R&D on scintillation materials for novel ionizing radiation detectors for High Energy Physics, medical imaging and industrial applications, in particular the Crystal Clear Collaboration developped several prototypes of positron emission tomographs. Over the last years, she has also coordinated several European projects involving scintillating materials and their applications in particular for fast timing detectors.

Dr Anna Kirby is current President of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) which facilitates radiation oncology research dissemination, education, training, interdisciplinary collaboration, professional support and advocacy both in Europe and beyond.

She studied Medical Sciences with psychology at Cambridge University and subsequently trained in clinical oncology at the Royal Marsden, UK becoming a Consultant Clinical Oncologist there in 2009 specialising in radiotherapy for patients with breast cancer. She leads research into novel breast radiotherapy techniques at The Royal Marsden and Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London and was recently appointed as a Reader at the ICR. She is Technical Radiotherapy Lead for the UK Breast Proton Trial (PARABLE), Chief Investigator of the UK HeartSpare studies, Chief Clinical Co-ordinator of the IMPORT breast radiotherapy trials, and Breast Lead Investigator on the CORE trial evaluating the role of stereotactic radiotherapy in treating oligometastatic disease. She has a track record in investigating pragmatic innovations and translating these promptly into the clinic.

Ankur (pronounced ‘un-kur’) leads public engagement on AI for science at DeepMind, an artificial intelligence lab headquartered in London. His career to date has focused on technological transformation and its societal impacts, holding various policy and strategic communications related roles in both government and private sector. At DeepMind, this has included leading the public launch of the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database, and piloting new formats for science communication. At Google, Ankur helped create the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, to counter violent extremist activity online, and the Be Internet Legends program to help younger children safely and confidently navigate the web. Ankur was previously in the UK Civil Service, where he was deputy editor for the 2015 Budget at HM Treasury; helped develop a digital transformation strategy for jobcentres at the Department for Work & Pensions; was seconded to work with the insurance industry on climate change related impacts; and while at the Department for Education, helped establish a cross-industry Adoption Leadership board to reduce the number of children waiting to be adopted.

Outside of work, Ankur has worked as a freelance photographer for concerts and events, and co-founded an arts organisation, Paperback Pictures, to promote diversity and inclusion in theatre. 

Pierre Carbonez, Belgian nuclear engineer, joined CERN Radiation Protection group in 1999. Section leader of the Dosimetry and Calibration services since 2010, he has been responsible for the installation of the new personal and then operational Dosimetry system at CERN. In 2014 he was project responsible for the construction of the new state of the art CERN Radiation protection instrument calibration facility. Since 2015 he is part of the MARS Collaboration developing spectral CT scanners based on the CERN Medipix technology. To this end he is also fellow in the department of Radiology of Otago University in New Zealand. Radiation protection expert in France and Switzerland he is leading the project of Competence Centre for internal dosimetry in collaboration with CHUV in Lausanne. Supervisor of Doctoral Students for CERN projects or KT funded projects for medical applications.

He is also responsible and lecturer for radiation protection trainings at CERN and other institutes/hospitals.