Michel Spiro


Michel Spiro is a French physicist.

Biography

Michel Spiro attended the high school Jean-Puy de Roanne. Spiro obtained the baccalauréat in 1963, with a specialisation in elementary mathematics. After this, he attended the school
Lycée Louis-le-Grand to prepare his entry exam at the École polytechnique. He completed his graduate studies in theoretical physics in 1969.
He joined the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission in 1970, as an engineer. He was promoted to the position of director of the Particle Physics Section of the Department of Astrophysics, Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics and Associated Instrumentation in 1991 and led the section until 1999. He became chargé de mission of the CEA and assistant scientific director in Centre national de la recherche scientifique, responsible for astroparticle physics and neutrinos. He took over the leadership of DAPNIA in 2002. From 2003 to 2010 he was appointed director of Institut national de physique nucléaire et de physique des particules in CNRS.
Spiro obtained his PhD from University of Paris-Sud, Orsay in 1976. His early research in particle physics led him, as a member of the UA1 experiment, to participate in the discovery of the intermediate bosons W and Z.
He then turned to study particles from the cosmos by participating in the GALLEX solar neutrino detection experiment.
He became then the spokesperson of the microlensing search experiment .
From 1983 to 1999, Professor Spiro lectured quantum mechanics, then stellar equilibrium and evolution and finally energy and environment at the École Polytechnique.
From 2010 to 2013 he was President of CERN Council. His presidency overlapped with the start of LHC physics. Since then Spiro helds the position as research director emeritus at the CEA.
Michel Spiro was president of the French Physical Society from 2016 to 2017 and president-elect for International Union of Pure and Applied Physics as of 2018. In October 2019 Spiro was asked to replace IUPAP president Kennedy J. Reed who wanted to step down for personal reasons. As of 2025 Spiro continues as IUPAP past president under the presidency of Silvina Ponce Dawson.
From June 2020 to December 2025, Michel Spiro was chair of the CERN and Society Foundation Board, a foundation to support and promote the mission of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and disseminate its benefits to the wider public. In March 2024, he was appointed chair of the Curie and Joliot-Curie Association, succeeding to Edouard Brezin.
Spiro chaired during 2022 and 2023 the steering committee of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development. He also contributed towards the proclamation on August 25, 2023, by the United Nations General Assembly, of an International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development 2024 to 2033. In this framework he chairs The Earth-Humanity Coalition during the year 2024.

Awards and honors

Works and publications

Scientific articles

The database INSPIRE-HEP has recorded more than signed by Spiro.

Articles of special importance

  • Experimental Observation of Isolated Large Transverse Energy Electrons with Associated Missing Energy at s** =540-GeV. UA1 Collaboration. Feb 1983. 31 pp. Phys. Lett. B122 103-116
  • Experimental Particle Physics Without Accelerators. J. Rich, D. Lloyd Owen, M. Spiro. 1987. 126 pp. Phys. Rep. 151 239-364
  • Search for superheavy hydrogen in sea water. M. Spiro, B. Pichard, J. Rich, J.P. Soirat, S. Zylberajch, G. Grynberg, F. Trehin, P. Verkerk, Pierre Fayet, M.E. Goldberg. 1990.
  • Evidence for gravitational microlensing by dark objects in the galactic halo. EROS collaboration E. Aubourg, P. Bareyre, S. Brehin, M. Gros, M. Lachieze-Rey, B. Laurent, E. Lesquoy, C. Magneville, A. Milsztain, L. Moscoso et al.. Oct 1993. 3 pp. Nature 365 623-625

Selected books

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