European Astronomical Society
e-Newsletter  18
February 2023

For one of the two Council positions we hope to elect someone with expertise/experience in communication as we seek to raise the profile of our activities among a wider audience. Please, look out for the announcement that voting has started, it will come soon, and you will have ~1 month to cast your vote.

I am delighted to report that we have secured the week of 27th Feb - 3rd March for an event at the European Parliament. The theme is `Are we alone in the Universe? Understanding Exoplanets'. It comprises a week-long exhibition and an afternoon of talks and discussion on Feb 28th. Both ESO & ESA are contributing to this and together we aim to excite Parliamentarians about exo-planet science, demonstrate Europe's leading role, and show them the wider impact of this work in outreach, education and economic impact.

Finally let me remind to that registration for our annual meeting, in Krakow, Poland from 10 to 14 July 2023, is now open, see below. Early bird registration is terrific value. I look forward to seeing many of you there.

This year the registration fee does not include lunch; lunch can be ordered separately during the registration process. The motivation for this decision is that last year several participants decided to not pick up their lunch, so that many lunches had to be discarded. Given the high inflation, this decision also resulted in registration fees at a similar level as previous years.

This year not only the plenary program and e-posters, but also all the Symposia will be accessible through our online platform. Thus, EAS 2023 now offers about 5 parallel sessions per day to our virtual participants, thereby significantly increasing the hybrid character of the annual meeting.

Almost 250,000 people have been involved in search, rescue, and logistics operations, including 11,000 professionals from foreign countries. Some people were rescued alive out of the wreckages even at the 10th day after the shocks.

According to the Turkish Astronomical Society (TAD),  several astronomers (including IAU and EAS members) are based in the region as there are three university observatories in Adana, Adiyaman, and Malatya. Fortunately, none of the observatories in the campuses of Cukurova, Adiyaman and Inonu Universities have suffered severe damages. However, many professional astronomers and students have been directly affected by the earthquakes, as their homes have been damaged or destroyed. The EAS reiterates the sympathy sentiments expressed in its statement, and sends its heartfelt condolences to our Turkish and Syrian colleagues who have experienced loss, and in particular to Dr. Ilham Nasiroglu (a member of the TAD and of the EAS) who lost almost his entire family in Hatay.

My first meeting with Jean Pierre was at my very first international astronomy meeting. It was in Liège, I think that it was in 1967. I was only a student and that meeting made a great impression on me. Many of the participants were world leading physicists. Jean Pierre had to step in and lead much of the conference. I was deeply impressed by him being able to do that despite still being a PhD student.

Since that time, I have had the feeling that Jean-Pierre was always around. After serving as Assistant General Secretary of the International Astronomical Union from 1982 to 1985 and General Secretary from 1985 to 1988, he served as President of the European Science Foundation and member of the Space Advisory Board of the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development of the European Commission.

Together with Lodewijk Woltjer, he was one of the founders of the European Astronomical Society and EAS Councilor 1991-1992. He was EAS Treasurer in 1994 and I took over as treasurer during the following 10 years. JP Swings was also member of the advisory structure of the ESO Very Large Telescope project.

The EAS 13th General Assembly was held in July 2005 in Liège, Belgium, and JP Swings was chair of the Scientific Organizing Committee of the EAS annual meeting (at that time JENAM). I remember that meeting very clearly as I met with Ukranian EAS members and students for the first time.

Jean-Pierre Swings was married to Nadine Duchesne. He had two sons: Anthony and William. He died in Liège on 16 January 2023, at the age of 79.

Honored be his memory.

In past years, we have implemented certain actions during EAS Annual Meeting, some of which in response to suggestions from our Sustainability Advisory Committee, towards reducing its GHG emissions, such as reducing printed materials to almost zero, replacing plastic bottles, recycling and offering only vegetarian options for lunches.  At the moment we are working on improving the hybrid option for the meeting, and hope that, with the help of the Advisory Committee,  we can identify and implement additional measures to reduce even further the meeting's carbon footprint.

Following the stepping down of most of the members of the Sustainability Advisory Committee in the summer of 2022, a call went out for new members to join. We received a significant number of expressions of interest and invitations were extended to several individuals, selected being mindful of gender, geographical and career stage balance. The new members of the Advisory Committee will start their two-year term in the coming weeks. Council looks forward to continuing to work towards more sustainable European astronomy with the Sustainability Advisory Committee.

The Advisory Committee have also coordinated the community consultation on the EAS Ethics Document and Guidelines for Good Practice and  updated its content to reflect the input received. The new version of these documents is now available on the EAS website. Council wishes to thank the members of the Inclusion and Diversity Advisory committee that have concluded their terms: Jake Noel-Storr and  Sara Anjos, who served as co-chairs, Sara White, who led the efforts on the EAS Ethics Document and Guidelines for Good Practice, Holly Andrews,  who coordinated the organization of EAS Inclusion Day 2022, Abigail Frost, Amparo Marco, Tomaz Zwitter.   Following a call that went out over the past summer, we received a very large number of expressions of interest to join the Advisory Committee.  Invitations were extended to several individuals, selected being mindful of gender, geographical and career stage balance. The new members of the  Advisory Committee will start their two-year term in the coming weeks. Council looks forward to continuing to work with the Advisory Committee to make European astronomy more equitable, diverse and inclusive.