Pietro BARABASCHI

Bio

Pietro Barabaschi, Director-General ITER Organization Pietro Barabaschi, an electro-mechanical engineer born in Milan, Italy, in 1965, has dedicated his career to fusion research. He became Director-General of the ITER Organization in October 2022. He began his career in the late 1980s at the Joint European Torus (JET) in Culham, UK, then the world’s largest fusion experiment. There, he developed expertise in the design and operation of tokamaks. During this period, the ITER project was emerging as a global effort—launched by the United States and the Soviet Union—to demonstrate the industrial feasibility of fusion energy. Barabaschi joined ITER in 1993 during its early design phase. In 2000, he was appointed Deputy to the ITER Project Leader and Head of Engineering and Design Integration. He later moved to Fusion for Energy (F4E), where he led Europe’s contributions to the JT-60SA tokamak project and served twice as Acting Executive Director. Returning to ITER in 2022, he assumed leadership at a critical juncture. The project faced quality issues in key components, regulatory challenges, and organizational complexity. Under Barabaschi's direction, ITER launched a comprehensive effort to repair components, reinforce alignment with regulations, strengthen coordination with international partners, and streamline internal structures. He also led the development of Baseline 2024, a revised plan incorporating design adjustments and risk mitigation measures. Endorsed by the ITER Council, the plan has been supported by strong performance, with progress tracking slightly ahead of schedule and well within cost forecasts. Barabaschi brings extensive experience across the scientific, technical, industrial, and organizational dimensions of large-scale international collaboration.