No 46 – 19/11/2020

SGAA/SSAA News No 46 – 19/11/2020

1. Friedel Thielemann received the Karl Schwarzschild medal
2. Last SSAA GA: Margit Haberreiter elected as President and Marina Battaglia as new member of the SSAA committee; Christoph Mordasini was confirmed as Treasurer
3. Update from the SSAA Committee
4. New SSAA e-mail addresses
5. IAU Membership
6. Saas-Fee lectures ‘Astronomy in the era of big data’ postponed to March 2021
7. Saas-Fee lectures “Compact-Object Astrophysics in the era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy” postponed to 2022
8. Edith Alice Müller award 2020
9. NEW, job opportunities (if any)
10. General information on the Society

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1. Friedel Thielemann received the Karl Schwarzschild medal

Our warm congratulations go to Friedel Thielemann for receiving the Karl Schwarzschild medal 2020, the most prestigious prize in Germany in the field of astronomy and astrophysics. It is awarded by the “Astronomische Gesellschaft”.

Further details can be found under the following link:
http://www.astronomische-gesellschaft.org/en/activities/press-releases/karl-schwarzschild-medal-2020

Congratulations, Friedel!
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2. Last SSAA GA: Margit Haberreiter elected as President and Marina Battaglia as new member of the SSAA committee; Christoph Mordasini was confirmed as Treasurer

Due to the COVID19 pandemic, it was decided to hold the 2020 GA as video meeting. During the business session, the number of participants has oscillated between 48 and 56. During the scientific session, the number of participants has been between 40 and 46.

Georges Meynet’s presidency of the SSAA ended with this SSAA GA. We warmly thank Georges Meynet for leading the SSAA over the past two terms and shaping the SSAA during his presidency. We would like to high-light one key innovation for the society, which was the Edith Alice Müller Price awarded for the most outstanding PhD thesis the year, established for the 50th anniversary of the SSAA in 2019.

At the SSAA GA 2020 the following elections took place:
Margit Haberreiter was elected as new president.
Marina Battaglia was elected as new member of the SSAA Committee.
Christoph Mordasini was confirmed as Treasurer.

Details on the SSAA GA can be found under the following link:

GA 2020

The minutes, presentations and documents of the GA 2020 can be found under the following link:
https://drive.switch.ch/index.php/s/JMeTXv4vbiLAT42

If you have suggestions, comments, feedback to the following email addresses:
presidentssaa.ch
secretaryssaa.ch
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3. Update from the SSAA Committee

A SSAA committee meeting was held 27 October, 2020 and we agreed on the following task distributions amongst the Committee Members:
Vice-President: Marc Audard
Secretary: Marina Battaglia

We also inform the community that SSAA has now also active on Twitter @ssaa_sgaa.
So if you have any announcements you would like to share, pease send an email to secretaryssaa.ch and we will post it!

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4. New SSAA e-mail addresses

We have created new e-mail addresses to reach committee members:

presidentssaa.ch
vice-presidentssaa.ch
treasurerssaa.ch
secretaryssaa.ch
webmasterssaa.ch

The old e-mail addresses currently forward any message to the @ssaa.ch e-mail addresses. SSAA members
are kindly asked to update their contact lists to use the above new e-mails.

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5. IAU Membership

Each year, the International Astronomical Union welcomes new members. The application deadline is Dec 15.

The procedure is described in:

https://www.iau.org/administration/membership/individual/qualification/
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6. Saas-Fee lectures ‘Astronomy in the era of big data’ postponed to March 2021

The subject of the course is ‘Astronomy in the era of big data’, with three lecturers:
– Prof. Suzanne Aigrain (University of Oxford): Gaussian Processes for time series analysis
– Prof. Roberto Trotta (Imperial College London): Bayesian Statistics
– Prof. Marc Huertas-Company (Paris Observatory): Machine learning in Astronomy

Please regularly check the webpage for any updates.
http://nccr-planets.ch/saasfee2020/
Note that attendance is limited to 70 participants, and admission will be granted on a first-come-first-served basis.
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7. Saas-Fee lectures “Compact-Object Astrophysics in the era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy” postponed to 2022

At the 2019 General Assembly, we have selected the following topic for the Saas Fee lectures originally planned for 2021.
Compact-Object Astrophysics in the era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy
The organizers are:
Tassos Fragos (UNIGE), Carlo Ferrigno (UNIGE), Maurizio Falanga (ISSI)
+++++ This course is postponed to January 2022 ++++++

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8. Edith Alice Müller award 2020

We are glad to announce that the Edith Alice Müller Award 2020 was given to:

Ewelina Obrzud
for her thesis: ‘High Repetition Laser Rate Frequency Combs for Astronomical Spectrograph Calibration‘

and

Gioele Janett
for his thesis ‘Numerical Methods for the Transfer Equation of Polarized Radiation‘

more details at

Award 2020

Warm congratulations to Ewelina and Gioele!
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9. NEW: job opportunities

no new job opportunities this time
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10. General information on the Society

For more information concerning the SGAA/SSAA, astronomy in Switzerland, and related topics visit our Website
https://www.ssaa.ch
For any information and messages to be circulated via the SGAA/SSAA mailing list please e-mail your text to the secretary: secretaryssaa.ch in plain ASCII. Thank you !

– SSAA online registration:
Each member of the SSAA should register on the SSAA website and to provide his/her contact details if not already done.

If you have changed your affiliation/e-mail please change the information accordingly. This will ensure that the SSAA has your correct contact information.
You can directly access the registration page here

Registration


Otherwise go to the web page
https://www.ssaa.ch

– Annual membership payment through the webpage
The 30 CHF annual SSAA membership payment can be made online:

Payment


You can also set an automatic annual payment by clicking on the “Subscribe” button (but in that case you need to have a PayPal account).

– European Astronomical Society (EAS) MEMBERSHIP:
The EAS offers free membership to any member of the SSAA working as a researcher in astrophysics in Switzerland. You can opt in during the registration process to SSAA, or later in your profile interface. By ticking the box–> YES, I want to be an EAS member via the SSAA–, you agree that the SSAA transmits your detailed information to the EAS Office, and you agree that the EAS will make use of these data for EAS-related matters only. The EAS will also publish your first and last names, institution, and country on its EAS website, behind a login. The EAS Office will send login details at the beginning of each year.
SSAA members that are currently ordinary members of the EAS need also to tick this box in the SSAA profile interface if they wish to have the free membership via the SSAA. Otherwise, they will be considered as EAS paying members in 2020 (40 EUR).
The benefits of EAS membership can be found at:
https://eas.unige.ch//members.jsp?tab=benefits
In particular, EAS members profit from discount registration fees for the EAS annual meeting (formerly EWASS). The membership is, however, not immediate, so in case you plan to attend an EAS annual meeting please be sure to accept the EAS membership well in advance.

– SSAA on Twitter @ssaa_sgaa

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