JULY 2021 - TOPICS

Short News Upcoming 15th Conference of Hel.A.S. IAU elections The IAU Early Career Astronomer (ECA) Online Discourse Series Monthly Colloquium of HelAS Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. Short News

We are happy to announce that Prof. Vassilis Charmandaris, the President of our Society, was recently elected Vice-chair of the Board of Directors of Astronomy &Astrophysics journal. The Society extends its congratulations and wishes him every success in his new duties. We are happy to announce that Dr. Panos Patsis, former vice-President of our Society, was elected as National representative at the European, Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (E-ROAD). The OAD was established by the IAU in the purpose to harness the skills, infrastructure and knowledge of astronomers to benefit society at large. The Society extents its congratulations to Dr. Patsis and wishes him every success in his new duties. The Working Group for small bodies nomenclature on behalf of the IAU honored three members of our Society by giving their name to small bodies of our Solar System. (45846) Avdellidou=2000RA96 in honor of Dr. Chryssa Avdelidou (28609) Tsirvoulis=2000EL158 in honor of Dr. George Tsirvoulis (31873) Toliou=2000EA130 in honor of Dr. Athanasia Toliou The Society extends its best wishes for further success in their professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Ioannis Gkolias who has recently moved to the University of Thessaloniki to work on the NEOMAPP program. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in his professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Vasileia Masoura who recently moved to a postdoctoral researcher position at the Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria in Spain, where she will focus on AGN characterisation using machine learning techniques. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in her professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Christos Panagiotou, who recently completed his PhD at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). His thesis was entitled “NuSTAR view of Active Galactic Nuclei: Probing the reflected emission" and it was performed under the supervision of Dr. Roland Walter. Dr. Panagiotou has also been awarded an Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation and he will be moving to the Kavli Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) later this month. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in his professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Panagiotis Iosif who defended successfully his PhD. His thesis was entitled, "Models of relativistic stars as neutron star merger remnants¨, and it was completed under the supervision of Prof. Ν. Stergioulas. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in his professional pursuits. The monthly colloquia of our Society, after a successful academic year, will cease for the summer and will start again in September. The videos of this year's colloquia, are available in the Youtube channel of the Society.

2. Upcoming 15th Conference of Hel.A.S.

The 15th Conference, with more than 230 registered participants, is less than 5 days away. The conference program is available on the conference web-page. Access to the conference is restricted to registered participants. The conference registration fee, 10 Euros for Junior Members and 20 Euros for Ordinary/Associate members, can be paid using a credit card, via the dedicated secure server of the Society. Practical details of the process are available as a PDF file. If you are uncertain whether you have paid you may contact to Treasurer of the Society. The latest version of Hipparchos is available online .

3. IAU elections.

Following the IAU 2021 elections, several members of our Society were appointed as members of the new Division Steering Committees (DSC) and Commission Organizing Committees (COC) for the (2021-2024) term. The newly elected members of Division Steering Committees are: Dr. Eleni Th. Chatzichristou, Division C, 'Education, Outreach, Heritage' Prof. Alexander Nindos, Division E, 'Sun and Heliosphere' The newly elected members of the Commission Organizing Committees are: Dr. Kyriaki I. Antoniadou, Commission F2 'Exoplanets and the Solar System' Prof. Christos Efthymiopoulos, President of Commission A4 'Celestrial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy' Dr. Manolis K. Georgoulis, President of Commission E2 'Solar Activity' Prof. Nikolaos D. Kylafis, President of Commission J1 'Galaxy Spectral Energy Distribution' Dr. Panos A. Patsis, Commission H1 Local Universe' Our Society congratulates them on their appointment and wishes them every success in their new duties.

4. The IAU Early Career Astronomer (ECA) Online Discourse Series

Four new events featured by the IAU ECA Online Series: Thursday July 8th, 2021: 8:00-10:00 UTC / 10:00-12:00 CEST (2h) “Research project management: from “classic” to “agile” methods” Dr. Thomas Marty (Swiss Library Service Platform) Thursday July 22nd, 2021: 8:00-9:00 UTC / 10:00-11:00 CEST (1h) “Adventures with ESA Science Missions” Dr. Gaitee Hussain (ESA) Thursday August 19th, 2021: 14:00-15:00 UTC / 16:00-17:00 CEST “Open Data, Open Codes and Astronomy” Dr. David Spergel (Flatiron Institute) Business Meeting of the IAU EC WG of JMs: Thursday August 19th, 2021: 15:00-16:00 UTC / 17:00-18:00 CEST  (max 1h) Participation is free. All you have to do is fill out the event registration form no later than 24h (UTC) in advance of the subsequent event: https://forms.gle/o7bH4xxsMWrzpVx36. Recordings of these upcoming events will be available alongside select past events on our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZQsB5LY2Tv_tj9ddVdnPuw. For any queries, you may reach the Organizing Committee at: iaujuniormember@gmail.com. You can send your feedback to the Organizing Committee at: https://forms.gle/Wg4PBy5FPHRmdQAS9. Co-chairs of the event are: Maria Drozdovskaya (Universität Bern, Switzerland) & Fatoumata Kebe (Association Ephémérides, France)

5. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece

15th Hellenic Astronomical Conference 5-8 July 2021, Virtual Meeting 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

6. 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 1, 2021.  Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before July 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.