MAY 2020 - TOPICS

Short News 38th General Assembly of Hel.A.S. University admission for winners of Astronomy Olympiads PhD Fellowships at the Institute of Astrophysics - FORTH Call for proposals for Aristarchos Telescope Student and Postdoctoral Research Opportunities Abroad Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. Short News

Dear Member of our Society, we hope this message finds you well. Postal service between Greece, Serbia, the USA, South Africa and Australia has resumed, and we have finally been able to send the ballots to our members in those countries. Countries where mail cannot be sent yet include Spain, Brazil, Oman and the UAE. We hope it will not be too long before everything is back to normal and we will be keeping you up to date concerning the progress of the elections and other events. We wish to congratulate Dr. Yannis Liodakis, currently a Kavli Fellow at Stanford University (USA), who was awarded an independent 3 year postdoctoral fellowship position at the Finnish Center for Astronomy with ESO and he will be moving to Turku University later this year. The Society extends its best wishes to Dr. Liodakis for further successes in his professional endeavors. The Society would like to remind and alert its Junior Members of the upcoming, June 20 deadline for travel grant support for the second half of the year. The students who had a financial support for meetings of the first half of 2020 which were canceled due to the crisis will be able to use the financial support the next half of 2020 or the next year. More information and the grant application form can be found at the News & Events Section of the Society's web site.

2. 38th General Assembly of Hel.A.S.

The Governing Council of Hel.A.S. announces that the next, 38th General Assembly of the Society is scheduled for Friday, June 19, 2020 at the Society's legal base, namely the Section of Astrophysics, Astronomy and Mechanics of the Physics Department of the University of Athens. The General Assembly will convene at 09:30, in case a quorum consisting of 40%+1 of Ordinary and Junior Members is achieved. If no quorum is achieved by 09:30, the General Assembly will convene at the same location at 13:30 of the same day, regardless of quorum, in accordance with the Society's Constitution. The Society's elections for the Governing Council of the 2020 - 2022 service term will be taking place in the course of the forthcoming General Assembly. As per Articles 27 - 39 of the Society's Constitution, election-pertinent material, instructions and guidelines will be forwarded by ordinary mail to all Ordinary and Junior Members by April 10, 2020. Envelopes will also include an invitation and tentative agenda for the General Assembly. The names and short CVs of the candidates for the Governing Council and the Auditors are already uploaded online in the News and Events Section of the Society's website CV_2020.pdf. The financial report for the 2018 - 2020 term will be uploaded online location in due time and will be presented and discussed during the General Assembly. The Governing Council takes this opportunity to remind all Ordinary and Junior Members who wish to vote in the upcoming elections to fulfill the financial requirements for this action: according to Articles 14 and 27 of the Society's Constitution, no Member can vote in person or via an absentee ballot if not in good membership standing. This means that membership fees including the year 2019 should be covered by the election date in order to be eligible to vote. Both the Society's future and standing rely on a robust election turnout; for this reason, Members are strongly encouraged to fulfill this financial requirement that will validate their voting rights. You will be informed of any possible change of the announced dates.

3. University admission for winners of Astronomy Olympiads

In a proposed legislative plan that will come shortly to the Greek Parliament for voting, the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs allows medal winners from International Olympiads of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economics and Robotics to be admitted without entry examinations to University Departments of related curricula. However, the legislation does not include medal winners from the International Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The Society for Space and Astronomy at Volos has started an initiative to bring to the attention of the Ministry officials this point. Our Society supports the move and has already posted in the Ministry's discussion forum . A letter of support in agreement with a report from Emeriti Professors H. Varvoglis and J. Seiradakis which has been submitted to the Minister of Education.

4. PhD Fellowships at the Institute of Astrophysics - FORTH

The Institute of Astrophysics - FORTH announces the availability of PhD fellowships in select areas of observational extragalactic astrophysics under the supervision of Dr. Tanio Diaz Santos (tanio@ia.forth.gr). The student/students will be registered in the PhD program of the Dept. of Physics of the Univ. of Crete and are expected to commence by the end of 2020 or early 2021. The net monthly fellowship stipend is 750 Euros. For more information please check here.

5. Call for proposals for Aristarchos Telescope

A Call for Proposals for the observing period July 1 - October 31, 2020, has been announced. The deadline for submitting proposals is May 15, 2020.The deadline is postponed by 15 days. The observing period and the schedule may change due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The announcement can by found here.

6. Student and Postdoctoral Research Opportunities Abroad

The list below may be refreshed or updated with further established lists: Postponed to Summer 2021. The "Applied Galactic Dynamics Summer School" will take place at the Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, New York, (July 6th-August 14th). Interested Phd students can found more information here. Any Member of the Society who wishes to contribute another credible link with opportunities, or individual opportunities that will, however, be shown in a single-liner format as above, is encouraged to contact the Secretary of the Society.

7. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece

The following meeting is postponed due to the Covid-19 epidemic. Alvio@80 Conference in honor of Alvio Renzini 25-29 May 2020 Kolymbari, Island of Crete The following meeting is postponed due to the Covid-19 epidemic. Caratheodory Conference 29-30 May, 2020 Athens The following meeting is postponed to next year due to the Covid-19 epidemic. workshop on non-extensive statistical mechanics and kappa distributions 13-17 July, 2020 Chania, Crete

8. About this Newsletter

This Newsletter was sent to all members of Hel.A.S. who have e-mail access. The next edition of the Newsletter will be mailed around June 1, 2020.  Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before May 25, 2020. If you do not wish to receive future issues of this Newsletter or the e-mail address to which it was sent is not your preferred one, please inform the Secretary of Hel.A.S. at secretary@helas.gr.