Fabiola Gianotti received a Ph.D. in experimental particle physics from the University of Milan in 1989. Following several postdoctoral positions, she worked as a research physicist in the Physics Department of CERN and has been an honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh since August 2013. She is a member of the Italian Academy of Sciences (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei) and the US National Academy of Sciences (foreign associate member), as well as several international committees including the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon.

Dr Gianotti participated in several CERN experiments (WA70, UA2 experiment, ALEPH, ATLAS), working on detector R&D and construction, software development and data analysis, and was Spokesperson of the ATLAS experiment from March 2009 to February 2013. She was awarded the Fundamental Physics Prize - Special Breakthrough Prize in December 2012, the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society in September 2013 and the honour of Cavaliere di Gran Croce dell’ordine al merito della Repubblica in December 2014.