Professor Albert Fert is a French physicist, and one of the discoverers of the Giant magnetoresistive effect which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disks.
Fert is a professor and director of the Unité mixte de physique CNRS/Thales, which is associated with the Université Paris-Sud.
In 1988 he discovered the Giant magnetoresistive effect (GMR) in multilayers of iron and chromium. (GMR was simultaneously and independently discovered by Peter Grünberg from the Jülich Research Centre)
Fert's work has been recognised with the 2003 CNRS Gold Medal.