Tejinder (Jim) Virdee, CMS co-founder and former Spokesperson (2006-2010), was today elected as Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society of the UK.

Royal society fellows are “the most eminent scientists, engineers and technologists from the UK and the Commonwealth”. They are elected for life by a peer review process on the basis of excellence in science. Only 8000 people have been elected as Fellows since the foundation of the Royal Society more than three and a half centuries ago in 1660. Jim will be “standing on ye sholders of giants”, with previous fellows, including: Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Charles Darwin, Sir Alexander Fleming, Dorothy Hodgkin, Stephen Hawking, Sir Ernest Rutherford, Sir JJ Thompson, William Thomson (Baron Kelvin), and Sir Christopher Wren.

Jim said: “I am truly honoured and delighted to be elected Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a recognition of the tremendous work that has been accomplished during the last 20 years in the CMS experiment, a technological marvel that has pushed many boundaries. The construction of CMS has required the talents and resources of thousands of scientists and engineers worldwide. For me personally, it has been particularly satisfying to follow CMS from its conception to the construction and nowadays its successful operation in its quest for the Higgs boson and new physical phenomena.”