DECEMBER  2021 - TOPICS

Short News Letter regarding Greece joining ESO Recognising your PhD at DOATAP Two new positions at the RCAAM/Academy of Athens The IAU PhD prize application is open The new seminar series ”Hel.A.S. NextGen Series” is looking for speakers! Monthly Colloquium of Hel.A.S. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. Short News

The Society wishes to remind its Junior Members of the December 15 travel grant deadline for meetings which are taking place during the first half of 2022. Note that in principle all types of meetings (Conference, Workshop or School) are eligible for partial reimbursement of the expenses, provided that they are justified as very important for the completion of one's PhD thesis. Please visit the News and Event Hel.A.S. web page to find the application. We would like to congratulate Prof. Michail Mathioudakis who was recently awarded The Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Medal and Prize, by the UK Institute of Physics. The prize and medal are awarded for distinguished contributions to plasma, solar or space physics. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in his professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Sophia Derlopa who recently completed her PhD at the National Kapodistrian University of Athens in collaboration with the National Observatory of Athens. Her thesis was entitled, "3D Morpho-kinematic modeling of Supernova Remnants", and it was performed under the supervision of Dr. Panos Boumis. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in her professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Georgios Vasilopoulos who has recently moved to the Strasbourg Observatory, for a post-doctoral position. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in his professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Angelos Tsiaras who has been awarded the Arcetri Fellowship 2021 and recently moved to the Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri (Italy). The Society extends its best wishes for further success in his professional pursuits. The GC of HelAS would like to acknowledge the financial support of 500 Euros from the Institute of Astrophysics - FORTH, which will be used to partially cover the annual membership fee of Greece for the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics for the year 2020.

2. Letter regarding Greece joining ESO

The Greek National Committee for Astronomy (GNCA) recently made a formal request to Mr. Christos Dimas, Deputy Minister of Development and Investments, to take the steps necessary for Greece to join the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The letter of GNCA, presenting in details the various options of Greece, the associated costs, as well as all the benefits of an ESO membership, is available here. The Governing Council of HelAS is in full agreement of this initiative and hopes that the greek government will decide to move along this direction.

3. Recognizing your PhD at DOATAP

As most senior members of the Society already know, if someone has obtained her/his PhD degree in an academic institution outside Greece, the degree has to be recognised by DOATAP in order to be employed on a permanent position in Greece, either as a researcher or as a faculty. The recognition process is laborious and often takes a long time to be completed. Unfortunately, over the past few years this requirement has been extended even to postdoctoral fellowships funded by ELIDEK. We would thus strongly suggest the young members of our Society who obtained their PhD outside to consider recognising it, in order to keep open the possibility of employment in Greece. Some notes (in greek) of the steps involved are presented in the following PDF file. Individuals who have their PhD already recognised by DOATAP are also strongly encouraged to upload it to the National PhD Thesis Archive, following the instructions presented here.

4. Two new positions at the RCAAM/Academy of Athens

The Research Center for Astronomy and Applied Mathematics of the Academy of Athens invites applications for: 1) A position at the rank of Associate Researcher in the field of Computational Astrophysics. 2) A position at the rank of Assistant Researcher in the field of Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamics . Deadline: December 19, 2021, 23:59UT.

5. The IAU PhD prize application is open

The IAU is inviting applications for its 2021 PhD prize. Each IAU Division has, once a year, the opportunity to award its own prize to the candidate. Details for the application requirements are available here and the application form is here. The deadline for all applications is December 15.

6. The ”Hel.A.S. NextGen Seminar Series” is looking for speakers!

This fall, a new seminar series is starting, supported by young Hel.A.S. members. The seminars are aimed to encourage junior members of the Society and postdoctoral researchers to present their work obtaining valuable experience talking in front of an audience. All members interested to present their results are encouraged to do it here. For more information visit the dedicated webpage or send an e-mail to nextgen.helas@gmail.com. To increase the interactions around this event you may also join its Slack channel .

7. Astronomy Seminars in Greece

We would like to remind all members of the Society that there is a web page presenting 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 Moreover, if you wish to have the seminars of your institute included in the calendar, please contact the Secretary of the Society.

8. Monthly Colloquium of Hel.A.S.

We are happy to announce that the December 2021 colloquium speaker is Prof. Thomas Bisbas. As usual, videos of all past colloquia are available in the Youtube channel of the Society. Details of the upcoming colloquium follow: 12th Monthly Colloquium of HelAS - 14 December 2021 "The carbon cycle emission as a diagnostic tool for the interstellar medium state " by Dr. Thomas Bisbas (University of Cologne, Germany) Tuesday, 14 December 2021 at 18:00 Athens time (UTC + 2:00) Click for ZOOM link (Meeting ID: 913 3515 9650 and Passcode: 074582) Abstract:Carbon is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe and present to both local and distant galaxies. It can be found in three forms, known as the "carbon cycle": ionized (C+), atomic (C), and molecular in the form of carbon monoxide (CO). Its chemical state is determined by the environmental parameters of the interstellar medium. Consequently, we can use the emission lines of the carbon cycle to estimate these environmental parameters, which ultimately shape the density distribution of the interstellar gas in galaxies. Through numerical modelling and comparison with observational data, I will discuss how each of the aforementioned line emissions can be used as a diagnostic of the chemical and dynamical state of the interstellar medium.

9. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece

COSPAR 2022 44th Scientific Assembly 16-24 July 2022, Athens.

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 January 1, 2022.  Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before December 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.