Prof. Xavier
BARCONS
Director General, European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO)
Xavier Barcons is Director General of ESO since September 2017. ESO is an Intergovernmental Organisation which designs, builds and operates world-class ground-based astronomical observatories (such as VLT, VLTI, ALMA, and ELT) and fosters international cooperation for astronomy.
He holds an MA from the University of Barcelona (1981) and a PhD from the University Cantabria (1985) and is CSIC Research Professor since 2002. He was founding director (1995-1999) of the Instituto de Físcia de Cantabria, where he established the first Spanish X-ray astronomy group. He had several research periods at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge (UK). He was involved in ESA’s X-ray observatory flagship missions XMM-Newton and Athena, advised the Spanish Government on Astronomy and Research Infrastructures (2004-14), served at ESA Science advisory bodies and was ESO Council delegate (2007-11), as well as Vice-president (2011) and President (2012-14).
