MARCH 2020 - TOPICS

Short News Elections of Hel.A.S. Hellenic Space Center survey of Greek participation in ESA missions 2020 Summer school Alpbach Academic position at SQU Student and Postdoctoral Research Opportunities Abroad Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. Short News

The Society would like to congratulate Kostas Tziotziou who was recently elected as research scientist at the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing of the National Observatory of Athens. The Society extends its best wishes to Dr. Tziotziou for further successes in his professional pursuits. The Society would like to congratulate Ektoras Pouliasis who recently completed his PhD at the Department of Physics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens under the supervision of Dr. I. Georgantopoulos and Prof. Tsinganos. His thesis was entitled "Identification of Active Galactic Nuclei through different selection techniques"". The Society extends its best wishes to Dr. Pouliasis for further successes in his professional pursuits. Verify your contact details. All members of the Society, in particular the younger ones who often move from one institution to another, are strongly encouraged to review their contact details (postal and e-mail address) in the directory of Hel.A.S. If you notice a mistake please inform the Secretary of the Society at "secretary@helas.gr"

2. Elections of Hel.A.S.

The Governing Council of Hel.A.S. announces that the deadline for submissions of nominations for the next Council and Auditor Committee, to obtain a mandate for the 2020 - 2022 service, expired after February 29, 2020. The Council is pleased to announce that the number of candidates fulfills the number of vacant positions, which is a prerequisite for a smooth election process. In the next weeks, but not later than April 10, 2020, as per Article 31β of the Constitution, all Society Members with a right to vote will receive a personal envelope with the announcement of the elections, ballots and voting instructions. Precisely following these instructions is imperative for the smooth implementation of the elections. There will be more reminders and clarifications through the Newsletter of the Society in due time.

4. Hellenic Space Center survey of Greek participation in ESA missions

The recently created Hellenic Space Center (HSC) is responsible for setting up a draft national space program and also for coordinating the efforts of national institutions involved in space sciences and applications. Accordingly, the HSC will be conducting a survey of the participation of Greek research teams in ESA space missions. Therefore, we ask all Greek researchers participating in any way in ESA missions to provide feedback to the HSC by sending the following information: Mission name Current phase of mission (i.e. operating / mission extension / Phase A / Phase B / “proposed” / "under proposal preparation”, etc) Role of the team or team member (Co-Investigator / Science Team Member / Proposal team member / Other ?) Name of instrument or experiment, in case there is a contribution from a Greek research team or team member. Please send all relevant information to Ioannis Daglis (iadaglis at phys.uoa.gr), with copy to the Secretary of Hel.AS.

4. 2020 Summer School Alpbach

The 2020 Alpbach Summer School is entitled "Comparative Plasma Physics in the Universe" and will take place on July 14-23 at Alpbach/Tyrol Austria. The Summer school is open for application to young science and/or engineering students and graduates from among the member, associate and cooperating states of the European Space Agency. Applications should be submitted online until March 31, 2020. For more information please contact the National Point of Contact Dr. Anastasios Anastasiadis anastasi (@noa.gr) and consult the web page here.

5. Academic position at SQU

The Department of Physics, Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), Muscat, Oman, invites applications for full-time faculty positions at the rank of Assistant/Associate Professor in Astronomy/Space Science. The candidate should have a PhD in Physics/Astronomy or a related field with proven experience in teaching. Applicants should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, teaching statement with objectives as well as a research statement and objectives to the appointment committee chair, Prof. Abraham George akgeorge (@squ.edu.om). Deadline: March 15th 2020. For more info contact Dr. Zach Ioannou zac (@squ.edu.om).

7. Student and Postdoctoral Research Opportunities Abroad

The list below may be refreshed or updated with further established lists: A postdoc position on outreach, within CERN's Fellowship programme. For more info look here. 13 PhD positions in the field of supermassive black-hole formation and evolution are available across Europe from Sept. 2020 as part of the recently accepted H2020 ITN programme BiD4BEST. Details can be found in the links below: https://wwwmpa.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~kdolag/BiD4BEST/index.html http://members.noa.gr/age/opp.html. or via email to Antonis Georgakakis age (@noa.gr). 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. The ESO Summer Research Programme provides an opportunity to students, not yet enrolled into a PhD programme, to carry out a research project at the ESO Headquarters in Garching (Germany) from 2nd July to 11th August. For more info consult here. Contact: summerresearch @eso.org 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.

8. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece

PHAROS Conference 2020 - the multi-messenger physics and astrophysics of neutron stars 30 March to 3 April 2020 Patras, Greece Alvio@80 Conference in honor of Alvio Renzini 25-29 May 2020 Kolymbari, Island of Crete Caratheodory Conference 29-30 May, 2020 Athens workshop on non-extensive statistical mechanics and kappa distributions 13-17 July, 2020 Chania, Crete

9. 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 April 1, 2020.  Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before March 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.