Dr. Vassilis Charmandaris, Professor of Observational Astrophysics at the Dept. of Physics of the University of Crete and Associated Researcher of the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL) of FORTH, was elected Director of the Institute of Astrophysics (IA) of FORTH on January 22, 2019. The election was made by a seven-member Evaluation Committee appointed by the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs chaired by Prof. Apostolos Mastichiadis, Section of Astrophysics, Astronomy and Mechanics, Dept. of Physics, University of Athens. 

His official appointment is expected in the next few weeks.

Short Bio

Vassilis Charmandaris completed his undergraduate studies in Physics at the University of Thessaloniki in 1989 and continued his graduate studies in the US obtaining a PhD in Astrophysics at Iowa State University in 1995. Following a postdoctoral fellowship with the ISO/CAM group at the Astrophysics section of CEA/Saclay (France) he was awarded a Marie Curie fellowship at the Observatoire de Paris (France). In 1999 he moved back to the US and spent 6 years at the Astronomy Department of Cornell University. There he worked with the group who developed the Infrared Spectrograph of the Spitzer Space Telescope, which was launched by NASA in 2003. In 2005, Dr. Charmandaris joined the faculty of the Department of Physics of the University of Crete and since 2014 he is a Professor of Observational Astrophysics. During the period 2013-2018 he served as the Director of the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing of the National Observatory of Athens. More information is available in his personal web page: http://www.physics.uoc.gr/~vassilis