June 2025 - TOPICS
Short News Register to the 17th Hel.A.S. Conference Emilios Harlaftis Best PhD Prize ESA Science Programme Announcements Job Opportunities  Upcoming Astronomy Meetings and Schools in Greece About this Newsletter
1. Short News
We would like to congratulate Prof. N. Stergioulas of the Department of Physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for his recognition as a Fellow of the European Coalition for AI in Fundamental Physics (EuCAIF). EuCAIF is a European initiative aimed at promoting the use of AI in Fundamental Physics. Its members work in particle physics, astroparticle physics, nuclear physics, gravitational wave physics, cosmology, theoretical physics, as well as in simulation frameworks and computational infrastructures. The Society extends its best wishes for further successes in his professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate Dr. Dimitrios Athanasopoulos for successfully completing his PhD thesis, entitled "Rotational state of the main belt asteroids that belong to old collisional families",  at the Physics Department of the University of Athens under the supervision of Dr. Kosmas Gazeas. Since 2023 he has been working as a support astronomer at Kryoneri Observatory of the National Observatory of Athens under the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking System (SST) program. The Society extends its best wishes to Dr. Athanasopoulos for further successes in his professional pursuits.
2. Register to the 17th Hel.A.S. Conference We would like to encourage our members to register to the 17th Hel.A.S. Conference. We would also like to invite our members to attend the 44th General Assembly of the Society that will take place in Patras on July 1, 2025.  Deadline for registration submission: 9 June 2025 Deadline for registration fee payment: 20 June 2025 For more updates, check the conference webpage.
3. Emilios Harlaftis Best PhD Prize
The Governing Council (GC) is pleased to announce that Dr. Sofia Savvidou (PhD 2023, University of Heidelberg, Germany) has been selected for the "Emilios Harlaftis Best PhD Award 2025" following a thorough evaluation of the submitted applications. Dr. Savvidou completed her PhD thesis, "How dust shapes protoplanetary discs and the implications to planet formation", under the supervision of Prof. Bertram Bitsch. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg. The GC commends the overall high quality of research presented by all candidates and warmly congratulates them on their impressive scientific achievements within the limited timeframe of a doctoral thesis.
4. ESA Science Programme Announcements
1. Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for an "Interdisciplinary Scientist" and "Guest Investigators" in the BepiColombo Mission    Deadline for Letters of Intent: 20 May 2025, 12:00 (noon) CEST    Deadline for Proposals: 10 June 2025, 12:00 (noon) CEST    Details: LINK
5. Job Opportunities
2 PhD positions and 1 Postdoctoral Researcher position will soon be available at the Academy of Athens as part of the HFRI funded project "Gravitational Wave Events with Neutron Stars: From Nuclear Physics to Cosmology" (PI: A. Nathanail). Students nearing completion of their Master's degree are eligible and encouraged to apply. Interested candidates are encouraged to reach out Dr. Nathanail for further details (email).
6. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings and Schools in Greece
UniverseAI: Exploring the Universe with Artificial Intelligence June 2-6, 2025, Amphitheater G. Karabatzos, Harokopio University of Athens, Greece 2025 Summer School for Astrostatistics in Crete 16-20 June, Department of Physics, University of Crete, Heraklion 17th Hel.A.S. Conference 30 June - 2 July 2025, Conference and Cultural Center of the University of Patras, Greece Second Summer School in Observational Astrophysics 9-12 July 2025, Kryoneri, Corinthos Extragalactic Jets in Crete 2025 25 - 29 August 2025, Heraklion, Crete
7. 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 July 1, 2025. Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before June 25, 2025. 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.