AUGUST 2018 - TOPICS
Short News Obituary : Sotirios Svolopoulos (1920-2018) 44th General Assembly of COSPAR to be Organized in Athens in July 2022 Student and Postdoctoral Research Opportunities Abroad Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter
1. Short News
Our Society would like to congratulate Ordinary Member Dimitrios Giannios for his promotion to Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Purdue University. Professor Giannios is active in areas of high energy astrophysics, relativistic jets, and Gravitation among others. The Society extends its best wishes to Prof. Giannios for further successes in his professional pursuits. The Society would like to congratulate Ordinary Member Spyros Basilakos who was elected Director of the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing (IAASARS) of the National Observatory of Athens. Dr. Basilakos is President of the National Committee for Astronomy in Greece and is a Director of Research at the Research Center for Astronomy and Applied Mathematics (RCAAM) of the Academy of Athens. He is active in research areas of Cosmology, AGN, and Gravity. The Society extends its best wishes to Dr. Basilakos for further successes and productivity in his career. The fifth annual ESAC Data Analysis and Statistics (EDAS) workshop at ESA center, Madrid, will take place on October 8 to 11, 2018. Details can be found here or contact Ordinary Member Yannis Zouganelis.
2.Obituary : Sotirios Svolopoulos (1920-2018)
The Society expresses its condolences for the passing of Professor Emeritus Sotirios Svolopoulos, Professor at the KUA, and Founding Member of our Society. Sotirios Svolopoulos was born in Piraeus, Greece, on June 4, 1920. He received a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Athens, Greece (1944) and Masters degrees from the Universities of Exeter (1951) and London (1953). He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Athens, Greece, in 1960. He worked as Laboratory Assistant at the National Observatory of Athens (1945-53), as Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. (1954-55), at the Lick Observatory (1956-1960), at the University of Texas (1960-62), at the University of Arizona (1962-63), in Basel (1964-65), Switzerland, and in Hamburg, Germany (1965). He was named Docent of Astronomy at the University of Athens, Greece (1966) and worked, briefly, as an Astronomer at the National Observatory of Athens before being elected Professor of Astronomy at the University of Ioannina, Greece, where he worked for six years (1967-73). He was elected Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Athens (1973). He served as Chairman of the Mathematics Department of the University of Ioannina, Director of the Section of Astrophysics, Astronomy and Mechanics of the Department of Physics, University of Athens, and Director of the Laboratory of Astrophysics of the above Department. His scientific interests included the Galaxy (Rotation, Stellar Fields and Open Clusters), UBV, RGV and multicolor stellar photometry, Absolute Luminosity of Cepheid, Ecliptic Binaries, Stellar Spectroscopy and Spectrophotometry of Be-stars. He published many scientific papers in refereed journals and two textbooks in Astrophysics. Source: https://www.helas.gr/forms/YEARBOOK_2009.pdf
3.44th General Assembly of COSPAR to be Organized in Athens in July 2022
The Society is happy to announce that the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR, https://cosparhq.cnes.fr), in the course of its 42nd General Assembly and Council Meeting, decided, by majority vote, that the site of the 44th General Assembly of July 2022 will be Athens. This was the outcome of an Athens candidacy bid that was submitted by the National Committee for Space Research of the Academy of Athens. Besides the members of the Committee, the provisional Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of Athens COSPAR 2022 includes a significant number of scientists in Greece and the diaspora, most of them Ordinary Members of the Society. COSPAR General Assemblies provide an epitome of contemporary space physics, astronomy and astrophysics from space and are being attended by more than 2500 registered participants. A host of other events of a scientific and outreach nature typically accompany the central General Assembly event. The Society congratulates the provisional LOC of Athens COSPAR 2022 and extends its best wishes toward a successful preparation and implementation of this important event.
4. Student and Postdoctoral Research Opportunities Abroad
The list below may be refreshed or updated with further established lists: ESA proposes postdoctoral Space Science fellowships, with a deadline on 1 October 2018. More infos could be found here. Questions can be addressed at: fellowship@cosmos.esa.int AHEAD school on 'X-ray and multiwavelength surveys, 19-23 November 2018, MPE Garching. The School aims at providing young astronomers with the specific theoretical and practical skills to successfully exploit the current and future generation of large surveys. We will include in-depth discussions of both high-energy experiments and multi-wavelength surveys across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.To this end, world class experts in several fields will deliver lectures and conduct hands-on sessions, including analysis of real catalogs data. Students will have the opportunity to interact with renowned scientists in a high motivating environment. More information can be found 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.
9. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece
Escape of Lyman radiation from galactic labyrinths",  Kolybari, Crete, 11-14 September, 2018 ICSO 2018 International Conference on Space Optics,  Chania, Crete, 9-12 October 2018
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 September 1, 2018.  Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before August 25, 2018. 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.