***IAU Division D Bulletin N. 26: September 1, 2018***

INDEX:

• A message from outgoing Division D President Professor Chryssa Kouveliotou
• Inaugural message from new Division D President Professor Elena Plan
• Division D communications
• IAU Symposia for 2020
• Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Guest Investigator Cycle 15
• EWASS 2019
• Upcoming Conferences, Meetings, Workshops and Schools (new announcements)
• In memoriam

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* A message from outgoing Division D President Professor Chryssa Kouveliotou

Dear Division D Members,

My three years as Division President have come to an end and I am delighted to hand the baton to Elena Pian, your next President. As a Vice President Elena has been instrumental in the Division leadership and I am grateful for her support and friendship during the last three years. You all will be in excellent hands!

Xavier Barcons, John Kirk, and Anna Wolter rotate off the Steering Committee; I would like to thank them for their service and invaluable contributions. They are succeeded by Aya Bamba, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Matthew Baring, and Silvia Zane. Last but not least, Isabelle Grenier is our new Vice President. My warmest welcome to all of them! I will remain in an advisory role, replacing the previous past President, Diana Worrall, to whom I am extremely grateful for her guidance, in particular during the first year. Finally, we are very fortunate to have Anna Watts remain as our Division Secretary for another term.

The new Division leadership is taking over stewardship of 2000 members, as well as one Division Commission, and one Division Functional Working Group. In the next three years the DSC may have to address issues ranging from website maintenance and content, the usefulness of the newsletter, standing up a new Commission, and balancing the IAU Symposia representation of the Divisions. For all these, the support and active participation of the membership is extremely important.

It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve you,

With warmest regards,

Chryssa Kouveliotou

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* Inaugural message from new Division D President Professor Elena Plan

Dear Division D Members,

It will be my duty, honor and pleasure to serve you as the Division D President for the next three years. I am deeply grateful to our outgoing President Chryssa Kouveliotou for her coordination of the Division, which includes three Commissions and a Working Group.  Her role as a Division advisor in the next three years will be precious. I would like to thank also outgoing Steering Committee members Xavier Barcons, John Kirk and Anna Wolter for serving excellently our Division in the last six years.

My plan is to keep the Division visibility and activities to the high standards that we all know.  To this effect I will avail myself of the collaboration and assistance of new Division Vice-President Isabelle Grenier, Secretary Anna Watts, second-term Steering Committee member Tadayasu Dotani and newly elected members Aya Bamba, Dipankar Bhattacharyya, Matthew Baring and Silvia Zane, whom I welcome to their

new roles. Please find at the link:

https://www.iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/divisions/D/members/

the full description of Division D and its coordinating bodies.

I am especially counting on all Division D Members for support and opinions on the ways and measures that should be adopted to make the Division function at best and be mostly profitable for its members. Please, do not hesitate to contact me about any issue you may deem

relevant to enhance the scientific and organizational impact of our Division.  Looking forward to working with all of you in the next future.

Sincerely,

Elena Pian

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* Division D communications - from the Division D Secretary Anna Watts

At present Division D Communications rely on the monthly emailed newsletter, and the Division website. Much of the information that we pass on is also available through other channels, and relatively little draws on the unique strengths of the IAU community.  In the coming months I plan to conduct a survey of Division D members on how we can improve our communications and online resources.   In the mean time, I would like to ask members to think about what resources they would like to see on the website.  Examples might include: a list of all meetings in Division D science areas (aggregating the new announcements that come in the newsletter); a comprehensive list of planned and proposed telescopes/instruments, with links to webpages and contact points; community ‘contact points’ for certain science areas or countries; links to outreach and educational resources in our science area in the many languages of the IAU members.   If you have suggestions for things to consider, please contact me by replying to this email.

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* IAU Symposia for 2020

In December the IAU will welcome proposals for Symposia to take place in 2020.  While fully fledged proposals are due on 15 December 2018, Letters of Intent (LoI) must precede them, by the deadline of 15 September 2018.  Please refer to LoI rules and instructions at the following weblink:

https://www.iau.org/science/meetings/rules/#31

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* Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Guest Investigator Cycle 15

The Swift Guest Investigator (GI) Program solicits proposals for basic research relevant to the Swift mission. Cycle 15 retain all the elements of past cycles, including the successful "Key Project" category. See the Swift web pages (http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/proposals/swiftgi.html) for further details on the Cycle 15 program.

Important Dates for Cycle 15 are:

Phase 1 proposal due: September 27, 2018, 4:30PM EDT

Phase 1 proposal review: early December 2018

Cycle 15 observations begin: April 1, 2019

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* EWASS 2019

The deadline to submit Expressions of Interest to organise Symposia, Special Sessions, and Lunch Sessions at EWASS 2019 is September 9, 2018.  For more details see:

http://eas.unige.ch/EWASS2019/call.jsp

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*Upcoming Conferences, Meetings, Workshops and Schools

8th International Fermi Symposium

October 14-19 2018Baltimore, Maryland, USAhttps://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/mtgs/symposia/2018/

TORUS 2018: The many face of AGN obscuration

December 10-14 2018

Puerto Varas, Chile

www.torus2018.org

LISA Astrophysics Working Group Workshop

December 12-14 2018

Paris, France

https://indico.in2p3.fr/event/17664/

 

57th International Winter meeting on Nuclear Physics

January 21-25, 2019

Bormio, Italy

http://www.bormiomeeting.com

Spectroscopy with SOFIA: new results & future opportunities (SOFIA2019)

January 20–23, 2019

Schloss Ringberg, Tegernsee, Germany

https://events.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/indico/event/87/

Astrophysics with gravitational-wave populations

February 9-15, 2019

Aspen Center for Physics, USA

https://sites.google.com/fullerton.edu/gwpop-aspen2019

12th INTEGRAL Conference and 1st AHEAD Gamma-ray workshop

INTEGRAL looks AHEAD to Multi-messenger astrophysics

February 11-15 2019

Campus Biotech, Geneva (Switzerland)

https://www.astro.unige.ch/integral2019/

 

PHAROS PhD training school on multi-messenger physics and astrophysics with compact binaries

March 11-15 2019

Jena, Germany

https://indico.tpi.uni-jena.de/event/2/overview

 

The Metrewavelength Sky - II

Celebrating the 90th year of Govind Swarup and the 1st year of the upgraded GMRT

March 18-22, 2019

National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune, India

http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in/mwsky2

 

The New Era of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics

March 25-29 2019

Groningen, The Netherlands

http://multi-messenger.asterics2020.eu/

New Science enabled by New Technologies in the SKA Era

April 8-12 2019

Jodrell Bank, UK

https://indico.skatelescope.org/event/467

1st International Cherenkov Telescope Array Symposium - Exploring the High-Energy Universe with CTA

May 6-9, 2019

Bologna, Italy

www.cta-symposium.com

18th International Conference on  Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM 2019)

June 10-15 2019

Bari, Italy

http://sqm2019.ba.infn.it

Astrophysics of hot plasma in extended X-ray sources

June 12-14, 2019

European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC/ESA), Madrid, Spain

https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/2019-workshop

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*In memoriam

We are sorry to learn of the passing of Dr Vaclav Bumba (Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Ondřejov)

https://www.springer.com/gp/livingreviews/solar-physics/news/vaclav-bumba/15429598

and Professor Bernard Burke (MIT)

https://carnegiescience.edu/news/bernard-burke-who-co-discovered-jupiter’s-“voice”-dies-90

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If you wish to share with IAU Div D any information about matters that may be relevant to the activities of Div D Members, please send an e-mail to A.L.Watts@uva.nl. This will appear in the next Bulletin, which will be sent out on October 1, 2018.  Thank you in advance for your inputs, and best regards.

Dr Anna Watts, Secretary of IAU Div D Steering Committee

Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam