Albert Fert (born 7 March 1938) is a French physicist. He discovered giant magnetoresistance which was used to make gigabyte hard disks much easier to build. He is a professor at Université Paris-Sud in Orsay and scientific director of a laboratory called Unité mixte de recherche. The laboratory is part of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (National Scientific Research Centre) and Thales Group. He was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics together with the German physicist Peter Grünberg.