Brian Foster is Donald H. Perkins Professor Emeritus of Experimental Physics at the University of Oxford.
His research interests include electron-proton scattering, electron-positron annihilation physics and charged-particle acceleration using plasma wakefields. He graduated from London University in 1975 and obtained a D. Phil from Oxford in 1978. Foster led the particle physics group at the University of Bristol until 2003.
Foster chaired the European Committee for Future Accelerators from 2002 – 2005. He was a member of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council from 2001 – 2006. He was European Director for the International Linear Collider and subsequently the Linear Collider Collaboration from 2006-2017. Foster was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize in 1999 and the Max Born Medal of the German Physical Society and the Institute of Physics in 2003. In 2010 Foster was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at the University of Hamburg and DESY, from which he retired in 2019. In 2021, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the UK Institute of Physics.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and was its Vice-President in 2018. He was made an OBE by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2003. His book “Albert Einstein – A Life in Science and Music” will be published by Oxford University Press in summer 2025.
