Physicist Admir Greljo to Take 24 Young BiH Scientists to CERN for Training Next Year

Admir Greljo, a native of Trebinje who has been living for some time in Switzerland, where he works as a researcher at the prestigious CERN, the world's largest physics laboratory, is the president of the Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology (ANNT), which is organising this year's "STEM Youth Camp" in Konjic.

He told Klix.ba how he made his way from the University of Sarajevo to the world's most prestigious research centre for elementary particle physics. The early childhood of this man from Gacko, born in the Trebinje hospital 30 years ago, as he often introduces himself, was marked by the grim events of the war. Together with his family, Admir Greljo was expelled to Mostar in the 1990s, where he finished primary school. And it is from the heart of Herzegovina that his life story begins...

"It is important to say that I acquired almost all of my fundamental education in BiH. Physics at the Faculty of Science in Sarajevo was a natural choice. I was, and still am, in love with that science. I felt that I had a 'knack' for physics, but I could never have dreamt that one day I would work side by side with today's best physicists in the largest laboratory in the world. However, I do not think that great ambitions in early youth are necessarily positive; what matters is that you do what you love as well as you can. The results will come," Admir Greljo tells us. He says that he later had the opportunity to deepen his knowledge of the theoretical physics of elementary particles in three European cities: Ljubljana, where he completed his doctorate, and then postdoctoral positions in Zurich and Mainz. He stresses that all of this took a full seven years of serious work and commitment, which ultimately resulted in a two-year position at CERN's Theoretical Physics Department. "

. It is home to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where high-energy proton collisions temporarily recreate the conditions that prevailed in the early universe. By studying these collisions, we try to find answers to some of the biggest open questions in physics. Besides academic knowledge, CERN contributes to the development of new technologies. For example, the first website was created 30 years ago at CERN to distribute data recorded in particle collisions," he explains, describing the focus of the world's largest physics laboratory.

. Every day is different, consisting of discussions with colleagues, work on numerical and analytical calculations, writing papers, taking part in conferences and so on. He emphasises that CERN is visited by scientists from more than a hundred countries around the world in order to exchange scientific results and improve their knowledge, which makes it all the more significant. "CERN is a public institution funded by the taxpayers of its member states. CERN is therefore fully transparent and makes sure the public is properly informed about its activities. For instance, on 14 and 15 September this year CERN is organising

, which will welcome more than 80 thousand visitors from all over the world. Any Bosnians and Herzegovinians visiting this impressive event can find me as part of the 'Ask a Theoretical Physicist' programme. I will be there," adds the young physicist from BiH.

When we asked him whether young scientists from BiH, especially physicists, have prospects in their homeland, he replied that they have fewer and fewer opportunities for advancement and professional development compared with their peers in Western European countries, and that this is precisely why they go abroad. "Without much debate, we need to take concrete action to overcome this burning problem. In response to the need to create opportunities in the natural, mathematical and technical sciences, we founded the

(ANNT), through which I work together with dozens of excellent young researchers who grew up in BiH. ANNT's vision is BiH as a respectable and accessible country for science and technology, and its mission is to connect scientists with the aim of improving conditions and infrastructure. These days our Association is organising the 'STEM Youth Camp' in Konjic, a five-day camp for 50 secondary school pupils from all over BiH. The pupils will have the opportunity to attend lectures by our members, such as Adnan Mehonić, Lecturer at University College London, Hamza Merzić, an employee of Google's artificial intelligence research centre, and many others. At the beginning of next year, in cooperation with CERN, the Association will organise the first BiH CERN programme for teachers, where 24 young physics teachers will have the opportunity to visit the laboratory and learn about the science being researched here. I would like to take this opportunity to invite everyone interested to follow our Association's website," he stresses. Finally, he tells us that he is currently working on the theoretical physics of subatomic particles, which investigates the tiniest building blocks of matter. In other words, he studies what the fundamental particles are, what their properties are and how they interact. "The task of CERN's Theoretical Department is to understand the implications of experimental measurements in the context of physical theories and to propose new measurements to verify them. Specifically, the projects I am currently working on aim to understand the behaviour of the Higgs boson at high energies and to understand the origin of the three generations of elementary particles that make up matter," concludes Admir Greljo.

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