Helmut Schober

Helmut Schober is Chair of the League of advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS), and has been Director of the Institut Laue-Langevin since October 2016.

Prof. Schober joined the ILL in 1994. From 2001 to 2011, he led the Institute’s Time-of Flight – High Resolution group, before becoming Science Director and German Associate Director of the ILL.

Prof. Schober was born and grew up in Bavaria, Germany. He studied physics at the University of Regensburg and the University of Colorado in Boulder (USA), specialising in particular in the spectroscopy of molecular systems. He then worked as a researcher at the University of Mainz and at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, before joining the ILL. His research focused on fullerenes, the dynamics of liquids and glasses and on neutron instrumentation.

Prof. Schober is also Associate Professor at the University Grenoble Alpes, after being visiting professor at the Technical University of Munich. He is a former chair of the German Committee for Research with Neutrons (KFN) and was the coordinator of the European Neutron and Muon Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (NMI-II). In November 2019, Schober was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, an honorary title awarded to “non-French personalities in recognition of their outstanding services to the arts, humanities, science or technology, to France or to the institution awarding the title”.