Jie Gao, professor at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing, China, has been appointed by the Asian Committee for Future Accelerators (ACFA) to be the new chair of the Asian Linear Collider Steering Committee (ALCSC) for a term of three years. The appointment occurred during the First International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC'10. “I feel that it is a great honour for me to serve as the new chairman of ALCSC, and at the same time I feel a great responsibility to fulfil this role of promoting and coordinating ILC activities in Asia with good accordance and communication with other regions,” said Gao.

Former and new ALCSC chair meet at IPAC'10 Shin-ichi Kurokawa (left) and Jie Gao (right). Image: Nobuko Kobayashi

One of Gao's pottery collections, which belongs to the neolithic age about 3600 years ago. Image: Jie Gao

Gao took over the presidency from Shin-ichi Kurokawa, who is the former chair of the International Linear Collider Steering Committee (ILCSC) and Honorary Chairman of IPAC'10. “I became acquainted with Professor Gao in 2005 just after I became chair of ILCSC. Since then I have had many occasions of discussing with him and watching him working towards the ILC. Every time I was deeply impressed by his enthusiasm and high ideal for the ILC,” said Kurokawa. “Although it is much more difficult to steer ILC activities in Asia where differences between countries and regions are much bigger than that in the US or in Europe, I am fully confident that he will do it with his boundless enthusiasm and tremendous energy,” said Kurokawa, illustrating his confidence and expectation of Gao.

As chairman of ALCSC, Gao becomes a member of the International Linear Collider Steering Committee, and he shows his great respect to former chairmen, “I sincerely thank the first ALCSC chairman, Professor Won Namkung, and the previous ALCSC chairman, Shin-ichi for their great leadership and their hard work in promoting and coordinating ILC activities in Asia, mainly in Japan, China, Korea and India.”

Gao has dedicated his research to the ILC for years: he has been the ICFA Beam Dynamics Panel member since 2003 and the International Linear Collider Accelerator School Curriculum Committee member since 2006, “on the platform of which I have enjoyed to work with many people to promote future electron positron linear colliders,” Gao said. At present, Gao is the ILC group leader of IHEP, his main research fields are ILC-oriented 1.3-gigahertz superconducting accelerating technology development, ILC parameter choice and main linac beam dynamics, damping ring design and ATF2 (Accelerator Test Facility 2 at KEK). “He is a strict knowledgeable teacher with long term vision, and more importantly, I admire his high sense of responsibility and persistent pursuit of the development and prosperity of China's high-energy physics,” said Dou Wang, a PhD student of Gao.

Besides research work, Gao enjoys philosophy and art collections including oil paintings, Chinese landscape painting, porcelain and pottery. “Gao is different from many of the Chinese scientists, whether old or young; he is full of passion, dream and responsibility in both research work and social activities,” said Ji-yuan Zhai, an ILC group member of IHEP. “Science, philosophy and art come to a natural harmony in his life and you can easily feel it when you get to know him.”

As the new chair, Gao also gives out his future plans, he pointed out that the first thing to do is to learn from the experience of the former chairmen and to understand the different situations in Asia both from paper report information but also from on-site visiting. “I think that it is important for Asia to play an important role in the ILC world-wide collaboration through more equilibrium participations from different countries and region, such as Taiwan, and more collaboration within Asia,” Gao is determined.

-- Min Zhang