Belgian Professor Steven Lowette Appointed to Top CERN Role
Professor Steven Lowette from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) has been appointed as Physics Coordinator of the CMS experiment at CERN, becoming the first Belgian researcher to hold this prestigious leadership position in the experiment’s history. Lowette will begin his two-year mandate on 1 September 2026, overseeing the scientific output of one of the four major experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
A Historic First for Belgian Science
The appointment, formally ratified on 15 May 2026 by the CMS experiment’s governing body, marks a milestone for Belgian particle physics. While Belgian universities have been involved in CMS since its inception in 1992 and currently contribute approximately 2.5 per cent of the experiment’s personnel, no Belgian researcher had previously held the Physics Coordinator role. The VUB called the appointment “an important signal for the international position of Belgian science,” as reported by VRT NWS.
According to the VUB press release, Lowette will share the role with a colleague and bear responsibility for the entire scientific output of the CMS experiment, including quality control, day-to-day organisation of data analyses, and long-term strategic planning.
What Is the CMS Experiment?
The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors built on the LHC at CERN, the European particle physics research centre near Geneva. The LHC is a 27-kilometre underground ring where protons are accelerated to near light speed and collided. The CMS detector functions as a “digital camera the size of a cathedral,” capturing 40 million images per second of these collisions.
The CMS collaboration involves more than 3,300 physicists from 58 countries, including over 1,200 doctoral researchers. The experiment played a pivotal role in the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, a breakthrough that earned Belgian physicist François Englert the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013.
An Enormous Dataset Awaits
Lowette will begin his mandate at a particularly exciting moment for the CMS experiment. The recently concluded Run-3 period collected approximately twice as many collisions as Run-2, providing an enormous largely unexplored dataset.
“I will begin my mandate with an enormous dataset that remains largely unexplored,” Lowette said in the VUB press release. “We discovered the Higgs boson fourteen years ago, but the broader physics programme within CMS remains extraordinarily vibrant. It is already virtually certain that we will soon observe, for the first time beyond doubt, a rare decay of the Higgs boson into a pair of muons.”
Beyond Higgs boson research, the CMS programme includes investigating dark matter, analysing top quark properties, exploring matter-antimatter asymmetry, and studying the state of matter immediately following the Big Bang.
Preparing for the Future: The 2030 Upgrade
CERN is preparing a major upgrade of both the LHC and the CMS detector by 2030 — the so-called High-Luminosity LHC — which will dramatically increase data collection rates. This transition requires extensive preparatory work on software, analysis systems, and experiment organisation.
“A great deal of preparatory work is already under way to develop the components upon which we build our data analyses,” Lowette explained. “That will form a second challenging priority during my mandate.”
A Career Path to Scientific Leadership
Lowette’s journey to this top management role illustrates a path from doctoral research to international scientific leadership. He first joined the CMS experiment in 2001 as a doctoral researcher at VUB, completing his PhD in 2006 and receiving the CMS Thesis Award in 2007. He then spent six years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before returning to Belgium through an FWO Odysseus II mandate.
His progressive leadership roles within CMS include coordinating the Exotica group (2020–2022), serving as Corresponding Associate at CERN (2025), and coordinating the joint CMS/ATLAS contribution to the European Strategy for Particle Physics. The Brussels Times noted that this strategic work helps shape the future of particle physics research in Europe.
What This Means for Belgian Science
The appointment places a Belgian scientist at the heart of one of the world’s largest and most prestigious scientific collaborations. It comes at a time when CERN and European particle physics are shaping their future strategy, and Lowette’s prior involvement in high-level strategic discussions may strengthen Belgium’s position in future CERN decision-making and investments.
“The physics coordinator plays a crucial role in the top management of the CMS experiment,” Lowette said. “Our overarching task is to enable all members of the experiment to analyse data and produce top-quality results in the most efficient and impactful manner possible.”
What to Watch For
As Lowette prepares to take up his role in September, the particle physics community will be watching for several developments: the first definitive observation of the rare Higgs boson decay into muons, new insights from the Run-3 dataset, and progress on preparations for the 2030 High-Luminosity LHC upgrade. With a Belgian scientist now in one of CMS’s top leadership positions, Belgium’s contributions to fundamental physics research are set to reach new heights.