The ALICE HMPID detector with the three project leaders: Paolo Martinengo, Eugenio Nappid and Francois Piuz

With an active area of about 11m^2 covered with CsI, the HMPID is the largest application of this technology so far. This development started at CERN within the RD26 project under the leadership of Francois Piuz (CERN), now retired. It took fifteen years of research and development to master the method to the current scale and efficiency. During the construction phase the project was led by Eugenio Nappid (INFN Bari, Italy). In August 2006 Paolo Martinengo (CERN) took over the leadership and he will lead the project during the commissioning and exploitation phase.