FEBRUARY 2021 - TOPICS

Short News Amendment to the Constitution of the Society Payments with credit cards again possible The 15th Conference of HelAS New faculty position at the Dept. of Physics of the Univ. of Athens Monthly Colloquium of HelAS Astronomy Seminars in Greece Create and update your ORCID record Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. Short News

We would like to thank IAASARS/NOA and its Director Dr. S. Basilakos, for a donation of 1500 Euros to the Society, which will be used to cover part of the 2019 annual membership fee of Greece to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A). Since Greece is a member of A&A all scientists affiliated with greek academic institutions may publish to A&A without page charges. We would like to congratulate Dr. Danai Antonopoulou, who recently moved from Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre (Poland) to the University of Manchester (UK) as a Stephen Hawking Fellow. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in her professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Anezina Solomonidou, who recently moved from ESA-ESAC in Spain, to NASA/JPL in Pasadena, CA (USA). The Society extends its best wishes for further success in her professional pursuits.

2. Amendment to the Constitution of the Society

On Monday January 25, 2021 during an Extraordinary General Assembly of the Society, which was attended by 119 members, an amendment to the Constitution of the Society was unanimously approved. The new constitution, which will become effective once the minutes of the General Assembly are formally approved by the court of Athens in a few months, is available here. The minutes of the GA will have to be signed by the ordinary and junior members who attended the General Assembly and do not have pending membership fees for the year 2020. The names of the future signatories can be found in the draft of the minutes. Please review this document and if you do not see your name, while you think that it should be included, please contact the Secretary of Hel.A.S. The Governing Council of the Society would like to thank all members who were able to be present and supported this amendment, which is expected to greatly facilitate the functioning of the Society in the future.

3. Payments with credit cards again possible

We are happy to inform our members that the Society can again accept payments using credit cards. This is expected to facilitate in particular members who live outside continental Europe (ie USA) where the IBAN transfer system is not implemented and transfer of funds to pay the annual membership fee are rather costly. The relevant page is at: https://helas.gr/payment.php We would like to encourage all members who still have not paid their 2020 membership fee (due on August 31, 2020) to do so, using either a bank transfer or the credit card.

4. The 15th Conference of HelAS.

We would like to invite all members to register and submit their abstracts for the 15th Conference of HelAS, which will take place in Patras from 5-8 of July 2021. Abstracts are accepted until April 30, 2021 using the familiar submission system the Society has in place over the past 12 years. Even though we remain optimistic that we will be able to be physically present in Patras to meet and discuss about science during the conference, the Governing Council is monitoring closely the situation of the pandemic and is preparing to have a virtual conference should it be necessary. All relevant information for the conference is at: https://helas.gr/conf/2021

5. New faculty position at the Dept. of Physics of the Univ. of Athens

We inform our members about the opening of a new faculty position at the Department of Physics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The position is at the level of Assistant Professor in "Theoretical Mechanics" with an APELLA code APP19507. The application deadline is March 14, 2021.

6. Monthly Colloquium of HelAS

We are happy to announce that the February 2021 colloquium speaker is Prof. Vasileios Paschalidis. As usual, videos of all past colloquia are available in the Youtube channel of the Society. Details of the upcoming colloquium follow: 5th Monthly Colloquium of HelAS - 9 February 2021 "Probing fundamental physics through a synergy of numerical relativity with gravitational wave observations" by Prof. Vasileios Paschalidis (University of Arizona, USA) Tuesday, 9 February 2021 at 18:00 Athens time (UTC + 2:00) Click for ZOOM link (Meeting ID: 968 6910 8204 and Passcode: 657906) Abstract: We live in an exciting era where strong-field gravity is becoming a central pillar in the study of astrophysical sources. For the first time in history the detection of gravitational waves and simultaneous electromagnetic signals (multimessenger astronomy) from the same source have the potential to solve some of the most long-standing problems in fundamental physics and astrophysics. Numerical relativity plays an important role in the success of the multimessenger astronomy program. Using the vantage point of numerical relativity, in this talk we will focus on how observations of colliding neutron stars can teach us about the state of matter at densities greater than the nuclear density. We will also discuss how binary black holes may inform us about U(1) charge and modified gravity.

7. Astronomy Seminars in Greece

We would like to inform all members of a new web page which presents a Google calendar with the astrophysics and space physics seminars organised in Greece by groups in various universities and research institutes. Since many of those seminars are now broadcasted live this may facilitate our members, as well as scientists across Greece and abroad to attend them. For more information visit: https://helas.gr/seminars.php If you wish to have the seminars of your institute included in the calendar, please contact the Secretary of the Society.

8. Create and update your ORCID record

The online directory of the Society currently contains the ORCID of 197 members. Nearly all ordinary members of the Society in active academic positions (ie non retired members) have an ORCID. However, a number of them have not yet associated all their papers with their ORCID. Moreover, there are still several junior members who have not set up their ORCID even though they have published results of their research in scientific journals. We would like to encourage once more all members to create an ORCID and send the information to the Secretary. A simple tutorial on how this can be done is presented in the following video. More importantly, please use the NASA/ADS tool to easily claim your papers on a regular basis. Details on how this can be performed are available here. Please note that doing so will greatly facilitate to quantify the scientific impact of astrophysics in Greece to the national funding agencies.

9. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece

15th Hellenic Astronomical Conference 5-8 July 2021, Patras 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

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 March 1, 2021.  Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before February 25, 2021. 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.