!!Vassilis Charmandaris - Biography
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Vassilis Charmandaris is Professor of Observational Astrophysics at the Univ. of Crete (since 2005) and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH) (since 2025) in Greece. He obtained his BSc from the Univ. of Thessaloniki and his PhD from Iowa State University (USA)  in 1995. He was postdoctoral fellow at CEA/Saclay (France), a Marie Curie fellow at the Observatoire de Paris (France), and a research associate at Cornell University (USA), where he worked on the development of the Infrared Spectrograph of the Spitzer Space Telescope, which was launched by NASA in 2003.\\
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He has served in leadership positions in Greece, as an Institute Director at the National Observatory of Athens (2013-2018), founding Director of the Institute of Astrophysics, FORTH (2019-2025), Director of Skinakas Observatory (2019-2025) and President of the Hellenic Astronomical Society (2020-2024).\\
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Professor Charmandaris is an internationally recognized expert in the field of galaxy evolution, and in particular in developing observational techniques, empirical diagnostics and SED modeling methods to characterize the power source of the nuclear regions of galaxies. Over the past 30 years as member of leading teams or with his group at the University of Crete and FORTH he has been addressing questions related to gas accretion/outflows using mostly space infrared observatories (ISO, Spitzer, Herschel and JWST), as well as data from mm/sub-mm ground-based facilities (IRAM, ALMA). \\
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The impact of his scientific work can be quantified by various bibliographic indices (over 260 refereed papers, over 27,000 citations, h-index=80, according to Google Scholar), securing competitive funding and being awarded precious observing time in space facilities, as well as from invitation to give talks at institutes or conferences in Europe and elsewhere. A complete publication list is available at:  https://www.physics.uoc.gr/~vassilis/publications.html \\
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Moreover, his scientific maturity is recognized among his peers in Europe, since he has been invited or elected as an expert in various top-level science and scientific policy committees. These include the Astronomy Working Group (AWG) and the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) of ESA, the Scientific Council of INSU/CNRS and the Advisory committees of Observatoire de Paris and IRFU/CEA in France, the Board of Directors of the Journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, as well as his membership as evaluator of ERC grants in the area of Universe Sciences (PE9).\\ \\[{ALLOW view All}][{ALLOW edit vcharmandaris}][{ALLOW upload vcharmandaris}][{ALLOW comment All}]