November 2024 - TOPICS
Short News Hel.A.S. Annual Membership Fee 17th Hellenic Astronomical Society Conference The 2025 "Best PhD thesis Prize  - Emilios Harlaftis" Astronomy & Astrophysics Awards 2025 Travel Grants Job opportunities Check your contact information! Upcoming Astronomy Meetings and Schools in Greece About this Newsletter
1. Short News
The Society would like to congratulate former Hel.A.S. President, Vassilis Charmandaris, for receiving the title of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques (Knight of the Order of Academic Palms) awarded by the French Republic. The Order of the Academic Palmes is one of the highest distinctions in France, bestowed by the French Republic on distinguished academics and teachers for valuable service to education and science. Prof. Charmandaris will be awarded the insignia of Knight of the Order of Academic Palms, at an official ceremony at the French Embassy in Athens, which will take place during the first quarter of 2025.
2. HelA.S. Annual Membership Fee
We would like to remind all members of the Society, that the deadline for the payment of the annual membership fee for the year 2024 was August 31st. If your are uncertain about your payment status please contact the Secretary of the Society and the Treasurer. As it has been mentioned in the past, the preferred method of payment is online via the secure server of the Bank of Pireaus, using a direct bank transfer. For more details on this, as well as information on other methods of payment, please review the payment form listed bellow, or contact the Treasurer:  http://www.helas.gr/forms/dues.pdf
3. 17th Hellenic Astronomical Society Conference
We would like to inform our members that the 17th Hel.A.S. Conference will take place at the Conference and Cultural Center of the University of Patras (30 June - 2 July, 2025).  The Scientific Organizing Committee (SOC) will be composed of the following members: D. Hatzidimitriou (Chair, President of Hel.A.S.), J. Antoniadis, V. Archontis, G. Balasis, K. Dasyra, I. Gkolias, Α. Papaioannou, V. Pavlidou,  M. Petropoulou, N. Stergioulas, A. Tsiaras. More information about the conference and logistics will be announced on the Society's webpage and the in the upcoming newsletters. Stay tuned!
4. The 2025 "Best PhD thesis Prize - Emilios Harlaftis"
On September 1, 2020 the Governing Council of Hel.A.S. accepted a generous offer by the family of Dr. Emilios Harlaftis, an active member of our Society who passed away at an early age in 2005, and unanimously decided to rename “Best PhD thesis Prize" awarded by the Society every two years, to “Best PhD thesis Prize- Emilios Harlaftis”. The statues and application procedure of the award remain as in the past. Applications for the "2025 Best PhD thesis Prize - Emilios Harlaftis" are now open. They are restricted to Junior members of the Society, who have successfully defended their Ph.D. thesis between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2024. The application deadline is January 31, 2025. Additional information is available here.
5. Astronomy & Astrophysics Awards 2025
The Board of Directors of A&A attributes two yearly awards for outstanding research published in A&A by individuals in the initial stages of their careers. With these two awards, the Board wishes to express its appreciation, and contribute to the enthusiasm, of the new generation of researchers who will be shaping astronomy for the decades to come. These are the "Best PhD Thesis Award" and the "Early Career Award". More information is available here. The deadline for submission of applications is November 29, 2024.
6. Travel Grants
We would like to inform the Junior members of our Society that we are accepting applications for financial support for meetings occurring during the calendar year's second half (January - June 2025). Priority will be given to Junior members who have no access to other sources of funding for their participation in conferences or workshops. The deadline for submitting the application is December 15, 2024. The application form is available here. In addition to the application form, which is submitted by the junior members themselves, the PhD supervisor should also send via email to the Secretary an endorsement letter supporting the application (for more details, see https://helas.gr/events.php). A unique identification number will be assigned to each application. The results of each cycle will be announced in the newsletter after the evaluation is completed.
7. Job Opportunities
11 PhD positions on the feeding and feedback cycle of supermassive black holes are available at 10 astronomy groups across Europe from September 2025 as part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Doctorate Network TALES (Time-domain Analysis to study the Life-cycle and Evolution of Supermassive black holes). Details and application information can be found at the links below: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/280409 https://www.star.bris.ac.uk/TALES/ or via email to Antonis Georgakakis (age@noa.gr).
8. Check your contact information!
All members of the Society are strongly encouraged to review their contact details in the online directory of the Society and inform the Secretary for any updates/corrections that may be needed.
9. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings and Schools in Greece
17th Hel.A.S. Conference 30 June - 2 July 2025, Conference and Cultural Center of the University of Patras, Greece
10. 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 December 1, 2024. Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before November 25, 2024. 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.