CERN Alumni Weekly News | We reached 11,000 members, complete our survey, upcoing regional events, Symposium on Synchrotron X-ray radiation damage, Open Symposium of the European Strategy for Particle Physics

We’re delighted to share that the CERN Alumni Network has now surpassed 11,000 members! A warm welcome to our 11,000th member, Szymon Jan Galuszka, who is currently working for the ATLAS experiment: https://alumni.cern/news/2717496

As part of our commitment to ongoing development, we are once again requesting your valuable input. Five years ago, your feedback led us to introduce mentoring, establish Virtual Company Showrooms, amongst others — all in response to your call for stronger early-career support. Now it’s time to shape the next phase. You should have received a personalised link to the 2025 Alumni Survey in your inbox—please take a few moments to fill it out. Your insights are essential to helping us evolve the network and its opportunities. Thank you!

Two regional alumni gatherings are coming up soon—great chances to connect locally:

• CERN Alumni Swiss Romandie – Afterwork @Argusa (10 July 2025): https://alumni.cern/events/184158 
• CERN Alumni Eindhoven Group – Walk in the Woods (12 July 2025): https://alumni.cern/events/181506 

Don’t miss the upcoming Symposium on Synchrotron X-ray radiation damage in protein structure determination, presented by CERN Alumna, Elspeth Garman (Oxford University). The talk explores the role of nuclear physics techniques in structural biology and recent findings on metal identification in proteins using micropixel: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1559458/

The CERN Summer Student Lecture Programme is also under way. You can explore the full schedule here: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1508891/timetable/. The CERN Alumni Relations team will be presenting on Friday, 1 August.

Discussions held this week in Venice during the Open Symposium of the European Strategy for Particle Physics demonstrated strong momentum for ensuring CERN remains a leader in collider physics and technology: https://home.cern/news/press-release/cern/venice-event-brings-future-particle-physics-focus

Meanwhile, the LHC marked a new milestone with the first-ever collisions of protons and oxygen ions, offering fresh insight into the structure of matter: https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/first-ever-collisions-oxygen-lhc

Finally, in a symbolic moment of welcome, the Slovenian flag was raised at CERN this week to mark the country’s accession as CERN’s 25th Member State: https://home.cern/news/news/cern/slovenian-flag-raised-cern