Piotr Szymański hails from Warsaw, Poland. He studied physics at Warsaw University and went on to complete a PhD in experimental particle physics at the Institute for Nuclear Studies in Świerk, Poland. He worked as a Research Associate at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK and the J-W Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, Germany before going on to be a Staff Member at the European Organization for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. He holds a habilitation in physics and is the author or co-author of more than 200 scientific papers in various fields of particle physics. He was Head of the Department for Interdisciplinary Applications of Physics at the Institute for Nuclear Studies in Świerk, Poland. In 2009 he took up the position of Director of Euratom Safeguards at the Directorate General for Energy of the European Commission in Luxembourg. Since 2016 he leads the European Commission's Joint Research Centre Directorate for Energy, Mobility and Climate which brings together about 350 scientific staff based in Petten (NL), Ispra (IT), Seville (ES) and Brussels (B).