Albert Hofmann and Steve Myers honoured by the University of Geneva

Albert Hofmann (top) and Steve Myers (bottom) receive the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the hands of Maurice Bourquin, Rector of the University of Geneva and President of CERN Council.


 


In front of Geneva University's crowded auditorium, Albert Hofmann and Steve Myers received title of Doctor Honoris Causa last Friday 8 June. The two members of CERN thereby received the University's highest distinction. This honour comes in recognition of their careers in the service of accelerator physics and their essential contribution to the success of LEP.

Steve Myers joined CERN in August 1972 to work as engineer-in charge of the Intersecting Storage Rings collider (ISR). He was responsible for the acceleration by phase displacement of the high intensity beams to 31 GeV/c. He also worked on many other topics, notably the beam-beam effect in the ISR.
Albert Hofmann arrived at CERN from the Cambridge Electron Accelerator (CEA) near Boston, USA, in 1973 - already with an excellent reputation as accelerator theorist. Albert also joined the ISR and made significant contributions to longitudinal and transverse beam instabilities and measurement of the impedance seen by the beams.
Steve and Albert worked very closely together during the ISR golden years, and published joint papers on many performance related topics including space charge effects, impedance, and higher harmonic cavities.
In the early years of LEP, both Albert and Steve were very much involved in the initial conception and design of the collider. Albert was then made responsible for LEP beam instrumentation and Steve worked on the injectors, the RF parameters, and the fundamental performance limiting effects such as the beam-beam effect and transverse beam instabilities.
In 1983, Albert left CERN for an extended sabbatical at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). After more than three years at SLAC, in 1987 Albert returned to CERN and took joint responsibility, together with Steve, for the commissioning of LEP. They worked once again in close collaboration for the LEP Octant test in 1988 and the initial commissioning in 1989. During the ensuing 12 years of LEP operation they worked hand in glove on multiple aspects of LEP performance. Albert took particular interest in, amongst other topics, the precision measurement of the beam energy while Steve was made responsible for the overall performance and operation of LEP and concentrated on the luminosity increase and the energy upgrade of the collider.
In accepting this recognition from the University of Geneva, Albert and Steve emphasised that an accelerator such as LEP is the result of the work, dedication and expertise of several hundred CERN technicians, engineers and physicists. They sincerely thanked all these people and willingly accepted this award on behalf of the superb LEP team.