JULY 2010 - TOPICS

Short News The 28th General Assembly of Hel.A.S. Elections of the Governing Council of Hel.A.S. Job Opening The 2010 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics XII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. SHORT NEWS

We would like to congratulate Dr. Vallia Antoniou who was awarded a NASA Astrophysics Data Analysis Program (ADP) grant entitled "Understanding the Youngest X-ray Binary Populations in Low Metallicities" and was recently promoted to Affiliated Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy of Iowa State University, Ames, IA (USA). We would like to congratulate Dr. Yiannis Tsamis who recently moved to the European Southern Observatory (Germany) as a Marie Curie Fellow. The new issue of Hipparchos, Vol. 2, Issue 7, was distributed to the participants of the the 28th General Assembly of HelAS and has been mailed to all members. Check your mailboxes!

2. THE 28th GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF HEL.A.S.

During the 28th General Assembly (GA) of Hel.A.S. which took place on June 21, 2010 the President of the Society K. Tsinganos summarized the activities of HelAS during the last two years while the Treasurer, A. Mastichiadis, presented a detailed account of the finances. The Secretary, V. Charmandaris, introduced to the GA the applications of the individuals who had requested to become members of the Society, as well as the changes in membership status of some members. These were: Applicants for Ordinary Members (2): Gourgouliatos Konstantinos, (PhD 2009, Univ. of Cambridge, UK), Research Associate, Purdue Univ., USA Stamatikos Michael, (PhD 2006, Univ. of New York at Buffalo, USA), Research Associate, Ohio State Univ., USA Applications for Junior Members (5): Anastasiou Magdalini, Graduate Student at Univ. of Thessaloniki Karouzos Marios, Graduate Student at MPI Radioastronomy - Univ. of Cologne (Germany) Koutoulidis Lazaros, Graduate Student at Univ. of Patras Papageorgiou Athanasios, Graduate Student at Univ. of Patras Pouri Athina, Graduate Student at Univ. of Athens In addition 5 members changed their membership status. These were: From Junior to Ordinary Members (5): Arkas Stavros, (PhD 2010, Univ. of Patras) Dialynas Konstantinos, (PhD 2010, Univ. of Athens) Dionatos Odysseas, (PhD 2010, Univ. of Athens) Lazaridis Kosmas, (PhD 2010, Univ. of Cologne, Germany) Polychroni Danae, (PhD 2010, Liverpool John Moores Univ., UK) The GA unanimously approved all applications and changes of membership status. As a result Hel.A.S. now numbers 236 members. Detailed membership statistics are available as usual at: http://www.helas.gr/stats.php

3. THE ELECTIONS OF HEL.A.S.

In the elections that followed the 28th General Assembly, the members of Hel.A.S. voted for the President of the Society, as well as for the new Council and Auditors for the 2010-2012 term. Of the 222 ordinary and junior members, 206 were eligible to vote, and a total of 90 ballots were collected. The results of the elections were: Candidate for President of HelAS: Kylafis Nick [66 votes] Candidates for the Governing Council (6 elected): Anastasiadis Anastasios [21 votes] Apostolatos Theocharis [18 votes] Boumis Panayiotis [20 votes] Efthymiopoulos Christos [22 votes] Papadakis Iosif [28 votes] Tsiropoula Georgia [26 votes] Vlahakis Nektarios [28 votes] Vlahos Loukas [25 votes] Candidates for Auditors (3 elected): Katsiyannis Athanasios [37 votes] Tsiganis Kleomenis [37 votes] Zezas Andreas [36 votes] Five of the ballots received by mail were not used since no proof of the identity of the sender (such as a xerox copy of some form of ID) was included in the brown envelope containing the sealed ballot of the member. The remaining 85 ballots, contained one (1) blank vote, while six (6) votes were not counted since they were found irregular. Based on these results and according to the Constitution of Hel.A.S. Prof. N. Kylafis will be the President of the Society for the 2010-2012 term. Dr. A. Anastasiadis, Dr. Ch. Efthymiopoulos, Prof. I. Papadakis, Dr. G. Tsiropoula, Prof. N. Vlahakis, and Prof. L. Vlachos, will be the members of the Council for the same period, while Dr. A. Katsiyannis, Prof. K. Tsiganis and Prof. A. Zezas will act as Auditors. The minutes of the 28th GA are available online at: http://www.helas.gr/events/GA_21Jun10.pdf

4. JOB OPENING

A new tenure-track position at the level of "Professor" or "Associate Professor" in the field of "Space Physics" has been opened at the Department of Physics of the University of Athens. The application deadline is August 16, 2010. For more information please contact the secretary of the Department, Ms Eleni Tsalka, phone: +30-210-7276807, e-mail: etsalka@phys.uoa.gr

5. THE 2010 KAVLI PRIZE IN ASTROPHYSICS

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has awarded the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics for 2010 to J. Nelson (Univ. California Santa Cruz, USA), R. Wilson (ESO, Germany), and R. Angel (Univ. of Arizona, USA) "for their contributions to the development of giant telescopes". The biennial the million-dollar prize, presented by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Kavli Foundation, and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, was instituted in 2008 and is given to researchers who significantly advance knowledge in the fields of nanoscience, neuroscience, and astrophysics, acting as a complement to the Nobel Prize. The award is named for and funded by Fred Kavli, the Norwegian entrepreneur and phi lanthropist who later founded the Kavlico Corpora tion in the US — today one of the world’s largest suppliers of sensors for aeronautic, automotive and industrial applications. For more information on the prize, as well as the scientific contributions of the laureates visit: http://www.kavlifoundation.org/2010-astrophysics-citation

6. XXII CANARY ISLANDS WINTER SCHOOL OF ASTROPHYSICS

The XXII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics (WS), organized by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), focuses on the new advances and challenges that Asteroseismology provides in the domains of stellar structure, dynamics and evolution. The WS welcomes a maximum of 60 PhD students and young Post-Docs, and provides each year a unique opportunity for the participants to broaden their knowledge in a key field of Astronomy. The WS will take place in the town of La Laguna (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain), from November 15th to 26th, 2010. The lectures will be delivered in English and will be published subsequently in a dedicated monograph. Speakers will present their topics in a series of four lectures. Strong emphasis will be given to interaction between speakers and students through discussion sessions, coffee breaks, and some excursions. Visits to the IAC's Headquarter, the Teide Observatory in Tenerife and the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma will be scheduled as part of the activities. Those interested in attending the WS should send a Curriculum Vitae, a short summary of their current research project and a letter of reference from their thesis advisor, or Head of Department, by filling out the web forms in the above links or by mailing them to the address below. These should reach the IAC before July 10th 2010. Selected candidates will be informed by August 1st. For more information visit: http://www.iac.es/winschool2010

7. UPCOMING ASTRONOMY MEETINGS IN GREECE

The following meetings will take place in Greece. Please check the corresponding web page or contact the organizers by e-mail for more information.

Nonlinear Dynamics and Complexity: Theory, Methods and Applications Thessaloniki, 12-16 July 2010 Binary Star Evolution: Mass Loss, Accretion, and Mergers Mykonos, 22-25 June 2010 Challenges in Infrared Extragalactic Astrophysics II Crete, 27 September - 1 October 2010 10th Cluster Anniversary, Understanding the Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interaction at Multiple Scales with Cluster and THEMIS Corfu, 27 September - 1 October 2010 High Energy View of Accreting Objects: AGN and X-ray Binaries Crete, 5-14 October 2010

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 August 1st 2010. Please send your announcements (e.g. appointments/departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before July 25, 2010. 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.