Bill Stirling, a condensed matter physicist at Liverpool University in the UK, has been appointed as the next director general of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Stirling will replace the current director general, Yves Petroff, on 1 January 2001 and will hold the post for five years.
Stirling is no stranger to Grenoble, having worked at the nearby Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) neutron source for 14 years, and later chairing the ILL scientific council. He currently uses X-rays from the ESRF and other synchrotron sources to study magnetic structures and phase transitions in magnetic materials. Stirling was also closely involved in the construction of the XMAS beamline at the ESRF.
