AUGUST 2020 - TOPICS

Short News Hel.A.S. Elections The 38th General Assembly of Hel.A.S. IAASARS announces the first ground station for telecommunication services A Researcher C position at IA-FORTH The Astronomy Geneaology Project is Launched by AAS EAS Membership Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. Short News

We would like to congratulate Haris Apostolatos for his recent promotion to Full Professor at the Department of Physics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The Society extends its best wishes to Prof. Apostolatos for further success in his professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Nektarios Vlahakis, a member of the Governing Council of our Society, for his promotion to Full Professor at the Department of Physics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The Society extends its best wishes to Prof. Vlahakis for further successes in his professional endeavors. We would like to congratulate Andreas Zezas for his recent promotion to Full Professor of Observational Astrophysics at the Department of Physics of the University of Crete. The Society extends its best wishes to Prof. Zezas for further success in his professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Thanasis Papageorgiou who was awarded an IKY fellowship and has recently moved from Chile to the Univ. of Patras. The Society extends its best wishes to Dr. Papageorgiou for further successes in his professional endeavors.

2. Hel.A.S. Elections

In the elections that followed the 38th 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 2020-2022 term. Out of the 252 ordinary and junior members, a total of 55 eligible ballots were collected, including 40 postal votes. The results of the elections were: Candidate for President of Hel.A.S.: Charmandaris Vassilis [44 votes] Candidates for the Governing Council (6 elected): Georgakakis Antonios [27 votes] Gontikakis Konstantinos [34 votes] Gourgouliatos Konstantinos [14 votes] Patsourakos Spiros [16 votes] Tassis Konstantinos [18 votes] Vlahakis Nektarios [43 votes] Candidates for Auditors (3 elected): Balasis Georgios [27 votes] Giannakis Omiros [20 votes] Harsoula Mirella [31 votes] One ballot (1) was found invalid, while there were eleven (11) were blank votes. Based on these results and according to the Constitution of Hel.A.S., Prof. V. Charmandaris will be the President of the Society for the 2020 - 2022 term. Drs. A. Georgakakis, C. Gontikakis, Profs. K. Gourgouliatos, S. Patsourakos, K. Tassis and N. Vlahakis will be the members of the Society's Council for the term, while Drs. G. Balasis, O. Giannakis and M. Harsoula will act as Auditors.

3. The 38th General Assembly

The 38th General assembly took place on July 17, 2020, at the Society's headquarters, the Laboratory of Astronomy of the Physics Department of the University of Athens. The outgoing President, Prof. A. Mastichiadis, summarized the activities of Hel.A.S. during the term 2018-2020, while the Treasurer, A. Georgakakis, presented a detailed account of the Society's finances. The Secretary, C. Gontikakis, introduced to the GA twenty one (21) new membership applications, of which eight (8) were submitted for an ordinary membership and thirteen (13) for a junior membership. Applications for Ordinary membership were received by: Valogiannis George (proposed by N. Stergioulas and V. Charmandaris) Diaz-Santos Tanio (proposed by K. Tassis and V. Charmandaris) Gkouvelis Leonardos (proposed by K. Tassis and V. Charmandaris) Koutoulaki Maria Kalliopi (proposed by A. Zezas and V. Charmandaris) Saridakis Emmanuel (proposed by N. Vlahakis and N. Stergioulas) Stanley Flora (proposed by K. Tassis and V. Charmandaris) Tzemos Thanasis (proposed by G. Contopoulos and P. Patsis) Traianou Thalia (proposed by K. Tassis and V. Charmandaris) Applications for Junior membership were received by: Anagnos Theodore (PhD candidate, MPIA Germany, supervisor A. Quirrenbach, proposed by K. Tassis and V. Charmandaris) Kalomenopoulos Marios (PhD candidate, Univ. of Edinburg, supervisor S. Khochfar, proposed by A. Mastichiadis, N. Vlahakis) Katsioli Stavroula (PhD candidate, NKUA, supervisor E. Xilouris, proposed by E. Xilouris, A. Georgakakis) Korkidis George, (PhD candidate, Un. of Crete, supervisor V. Pavlidou, proposed by K. Tassis, V. Charmandaris) Mandarakas Nicolas (PhD candidate, Un. of Crete, supervisor K. Tassis, proposed by K. Tassis, V. Charmandaris) Migkas Konstantinos (PhD candidate, Univ. of Bonn Germany, supervisor T. Reiprich, proposed by K. Tassis, V. Charmandaris) Batziou Irene (PhD candidate, Technic. Univ. of Munich Germany, supervisor H.T. Janka, proposed by N. Vlahakis, V. Charmandaris) Mpisketzis Vassilis (PhD candidate, NKUA, supervisor N. Vlahakis, proposed by N. Vlahakis, A. Mastichiadis) Panagiotou Christos (PhD candidate, Univ. of Geneva, Switzerland, supervisor R. Walter, proposed by K. Tassis, V. Charmandaris) Savvidou Sofia (PhD candidate, MPIA, Germany, supervisor B. Bitsch, proposed by K. Tassis, V. Charmandaris) Romanopoulos Stylianos (PhD candidate, Univ. of Crete, supervisor V. Pavlidou, proposed by K. Tassis, V. Charmandaris) Fotopoulou Konstantina (PhD candidate, MPA Germany, supervisor T. Naab, proposed by K. Dasyra, V. Charmandaris) Psaradaki Ioanna (PhD candidate, SRON, The Netherlands, supervisor E. Constantini, proposed by V. Charmandaris, A. Zezas) Moreover, the Secretary informed that there was an application for ordinary member by Dr. Amanda Alice Maravelia, proposed by E. Dallas and L Zachilas. The GC decided against recommending this application to the GA and explained their reasoning answering a number of questions the participants had on this issue. The Secretary also informed the G.A. that 10 junior members of our Society become ordinary since they were awarded their PhD. Anastasopoulou Konstantina (PhD 2020, Univ. of Crete, supervised by A. Zezas) Karampelas Konstantinos (PhD 2019, KU Leuven Belgium, supervised by T. Van Doorsselaere) Katsoulakos Grigorios (PhD 2019, Univ. of Heidelberg, Germany supervised by F. Rieger) Millas Dimitrios (PhD 2019, KU Leuven, Belgium, supervised by R. Keppens) Nersesian Aggelos (PhD 2019, NKUA, supervised by E. Xilouris & N. Vlahakis) Pouliasis Ectoras (PhD 2020, NKUA, supervised by I. Georgantopoulos & K. Tsinganos) Skoulidou Despina, (PhD 2019, AUTh, supervised by K. Tsiganis) Spetsieri Zoe-Tzogia (PhD 2019, NKUA, supervised by A. Mponanou & D. Hatzidimitriou) Toliou Athanasia (PhD 2019, AUTh, supervised by K. Tsiganis) Tsirvoulis George (PhD 2019, Univ. of Belgrade Serbia, supervised by B. Novakovic) We wish to remind all members that details regarding the dissertation, such as title and/or full text, of the previously mentioned new ordinary members are available at the Society's webpage, and specifically under the link "Greek Astronomy PhDs". There was 1 associate member who became a junior member as he has started his PhD. Koumtzis Argirios (PhD candidate, Univ. of Gottingen supervised by H. Peter) The Secretary also reminded the GA that according to a decision of the 26th GA of June 20, 2008, members of our Society designated as retirees are exempted from paying their membership fees if they fulfil some criteria. These members, cannot vote or be candidates for the Council of the Society. During the GA, five more members were proposed to be added to this category, which currently numbers 31 individuals. Their names are in the minutes of the GA. The GA unanimously approved the above applications and modifications. As a result, on July 17, 2020, the Society consists of 281 members. The members are distributed as follows: 219 Ordinary Members (33 of them being Founding Ordinary Members), 52 Junior Members, and 10 Associate Members. Among the 219 Ordinary members the 31 retirees are included.

4. IAASARS announces the first ground station for telecommunication services

The Director of the Institute of Astronomy, Astrophysics Space Applications & Remote Sensing (IAASARS) is informing the community that the first ground station of the European program for the next generation of telecommunication services will be installed in Greece. ESA informed the General Secretariat for Telecommunications and Post Offices of the  Ministry of Digital Governance that Greece was chosen to host the first ground station of the program «fibre in the sky -scylight», which employs satellites to achieve super high data transmission speeds. ESA will make the final choice between the two telescopes of the National Observatory of Athens coordinated by IAASARS: the 2.3m Aristarchos telescope at Helmos Observatory and the 1.2m telescope at Kryoneri on Mt Kyllene, Korinthia. On Monday, July 13, 2020, officials of the Ministry of Digital Governance visited the two telescope sites for a first evaluation. The total budget of the ''scylight'' program is close to 6MEuros. As it is known the Aristarchos telescope is part of the OPTICON-H2020 network. Moreover, the Kryoneri telescope is part of the Europlanet 2024 RI telescope network and since 2016 it is used to determine the distribution and frequency of small near-earth objects (NEOs) by monitoring lunar impact flashes, under the NELIOTA project.

5. A Researcher C position at IA-FORTH

The Institute of Astrophysics at FORTH has an opening for an Associate Researcher (Researcher C) position in the area of Observational Astrophysics. The application deadline is September 25, 2020. For more information, in Greek, please check here.

6. The Astronomy Geneaology Project is Launched by AAS

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) and its Historical Astronomy Division announced the launch on 25 July of the Astronomy Genealogy Project, or AstroGen. The project’s website at https://astrogen.aas.org provides information on more than 33,000 astronomers who either earned doctorates with astronomy-related theses or supervised research for such dissertations. It is called a genealogy project because, in academic genealogy, a person’s “parent” is their thesis advisor. All astronomy PhDs awarded by greek academic institutions up until the end of 2019have been included in AstroGen. More information is available here.

7. EAS Membership

All ordinary and junior members of Hel.A.S. can become, if they wish, members of the European Astronomical Society (EAS) at no cost, since Hel.A.S. is an affiliated society of EAS. In the summer of 2018, 126 Hel.A.S. members had confirmed that they wanted to also become EAS members. The EAS gives us again the opportunity to update this list. To provide this information, over the next few days all members of Hel.A.S., who had not confirmed that they wanted to join EAS, will receive an e-mail with instructions on how to opt in, if they so wish.

8. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece

Workshop on "Non-extensive statistical mechanics and kappa distributions" 12-16 July 2021, Chania, Island of Crete Alvio@80 Conference in honor of Alvio Renzini 5-10 September 2021, Kolymbari, Island of 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 September 1, 2020.  Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before August 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.