Team members
Project Leader
  • Dr G. Tsiropoula

    Research Director at IAASARS, NOA. She received the B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Athens, the D.E.A. in Astrophysics from the University Paris VII and the PhD in Solar Physics from the University of Athens. Her scientific interests include Solar and Interplanetary Physics and more specifically, fine-scale structure of the solar atmosphere, sunspot oscillations, coronal loops, radiative transfer problems and signatures of solar structures in the interplanetary medium. She has worked as a visiting research fellow at the Laboratoire Stellaire and Planetaire (CNRS, France), as a visiting scientist at the Observatoire de Meudon (France), at the Ondřejov Observatory (Czech Republic) and at the Sterrekundig Instituut of Utrect (The Netherlands) and as a visiting observer at the Observatorio del Teide (Tenerife) and the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma). She has been principal investigator or co-investigator in several projects funded from the European Commission (EC) or the General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT). She has organized and served as the principal investigator or has participated as a co-investigator in several solar observational campaigns (two of them funded through OPTICON) in which space-borne (such as SoHO, TRACE and Hinode) and ground-based instruments (such as VTT, THEMIS and DOT) were involved. She has been the main organizer of an International Conference in Solar Physics funded from the EC and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) (Santorini, 2002) and co-organizer of the 13th meeting of the European Solar Physics division (Rhodes, 2011).She has been team co-leader of two meetings held in 2009 and 2010 at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern (Switzerland) on “Small-scale transient events and their role in coronal heating” (http://www.issibern.ch/teams/trans_pheno/). She has published 45 papers in refereed journals, 12 refereed papers in conference proceedings, 3 review papers and approximately 60 papers in conference proceedings and special volumes/books. She has served as a supervisor of post-docs, PhD and Msc students. She has served three times as a member of an international committee for a prize award to a young solar physicist for an outstanding paper published in a peer-reviewed journal. She is elected as Secretary of the Board of the Joint Organization for Solar Observations (JOSO) since 2005, as well as member of the Board of the Hellenic Astronomical Society and member of the Board of the European Solar Physics Division.


    Collaborating Researchers
  • Dr Manolis Georgoulis

    • As of 2009, Researcher at the Research Center for Astronomy and Applied Mathematics of the Academy of Athens. B.Sc. in Physics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1993). Ph.D. in solar plasma physics from the same institution (2000). Then, a PostDoctoral Research Associate at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) in Laurel, MD, USA and thereafter a Senior Professional Staff Physicist at the same institution. Elected Board Member of the European Solar Physics Division (ESPD) of the European Physical Society since 2008. Marie Curie Fellow of the European Commission (2010 – 2014). As of 2011, Greek National Delegate to the Science Programme Committee of the European Space Agency (ESA/SPC). In the past he was awarded a Special Achievement Award (JHU/APL), an ERASMUS Scholarship of the European Astrophysical Doctoral Network (EADN), and a Ph.D. Scholarship of the Greek National Foundation of Scholarships (IKY). He has participated in the Science Team of three (3) NASA and one (1) ESA space missions, including a Deputy Project Scientist position in the Solar Probe Plus (SPP) mission (2008 – 2009), currently built at JHU/APL. He has served or is serving as the Principal Investigator in 5 research projects awarded by NASA, 1 project awarded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), one (1) project of the European Commission, and 1 project of the Research Committee of the Academy of Athens. He has served or is serving as a Co-Investigator or Collaborator in at least 10 research projects of the above sponsors and ESA. More than 80 participations in international meetings, with 21 invited talks and reviews. Mail-in reviewer in numerous NASA and NSF proposals and, in two (2) cases, panelist in proposal evaluation panels constituted by both agencies. He has authored or co-authored 44 papers in refereed journals and 28 papers in conference proceedings/special volumes. Several of these papers address the issue of coronal magnetic field extrapolation in various sophistication levels, as well as studies of magnetic energy and helicity budgets in solar magnetic structures.

  • Dr Costis Gontikakis

    • Costis Gontikakis is a researcher at the Research Center for Astronomy and Applied Mathematics of the Academy of Athens. He completed his PhD in 1996, at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), in Paris (France), on the subject of radiative transfer in hydrogen lines in moving solar prominences. Among his research interests is the understanding of the dynamics and morphology of the solar corona and transition region. He has studied the dynamics and geometry of coronal loops and jets. In these works he has developed skills in analyzing solar images and spectra recorded by space telescopes in the UltraViolet solar spectrum. A second research interest is the study of particles acceleration in the solar corona during flares. He performed particle orbits integrations and developed analytical solutions concerning particle's motions in reconnecting current sheets. He has 25 publications in refereed journals and more than 30 publications in conference proceedings. He participated in the organization of 2 international conferences: The European Solar Physics Meeting 13, which took place in Rhodes on September 12-16, 2011, and the Solar Orbiter second workshop which took place in Athens on 16-20 October 2006.

  • Prof G. Doyle

    • Research Astronomer at the Armagh Observatory. He has long experience in the study of magnetic activity phenomena relating to cool stars; in general. He has experience in (i) the calculation and application of atomic physics to the reduction/interpretation of solar and stellar data, (ii) solar physics (including the reduction and interpretation of sunspot, plage and flare data from several solar space missions (iii) the reduction and interpretation of data relating to cool stars over a vast frequency range, including, X-ray data from EXOSAT, EUVE and GINGA, ultraviolet (IUE, HST), extreme ultraviolet (ROSAT, EUVE), optical (SAAO, INT, WHT, Kitt Peak), infrared (IRAS, UKIRT), millimetre (JCMT, SEST) and radio (VLA, AT, GMRT, EVN). He is involved in the analysis and modelling of numerous solar features, e.g. bright-points, chromospheric oscillations, coronal holes, macro-spicules, etc. Part of this work has also involved simulations of transition region line profiles using non-equilibrium ionization calculations to simulate the fast moving jet features. He has over 260 refereed papers plus 170 non-refereed/conference papers. He is currently involved in the reduction and modelling of data from the space missions SoHO, Hinode and SDO.

  • Dr V. Archontis

    • Senior Research Fellow at St. Andrews University, UK. He received the B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Thessaloniki and the PhD in Astrophysics from the Niels Bohr Institute, Denmark (1997-2000). He worked as post-doctoral researcher at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (Tenerife, 2002-2006) and at the University of St. Andrews (2006-present) and as visiting scientist at SAO (Harvard University), at the Observatoire de Meudon (France) and at the Niels Bohr Institute (Denmark). His main research interest is Numerical Astrophysics (code development, data analysis and visualization). He is mainly involved in three topics within astrophysical research: 1) Generation of magnetic fields in turbulent environments (dynamos), 2) emergence of solar magnetic fields from the interior of the Sun to the outer solar atmosphere and 3) the onset and dynamics of Jets and Coronal Mass Ejections. He has been awarded a series of grants and fellowships (an EU Marie Curie grant (1997-2000), an IEF Marie Curie grant (2010), a STFC advanced fellowship (2011 offered/declined), a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) (2011-2016)). He has served as a member of the panel committee for the evaluation of NASA proposals. He has published more than 25 papers in refereed journals, 3 invited review papers and more than 15 papers in conference proceedings.

    Post-Docs
  • Dr K. Tziotziou

    • Dr Kostas Tziotziou obtained his B.Sc. in Physics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece in 1992 and his PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, in 1997. He has worked as an undergraduate student at the Astronomical Institute of Amsterdam University, The Netherlands (1989-1991), and as a research associate (Post Doctoral fellow) at Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, France (1999-2002), ISARS/ National Observatory of Athens, Greece (2002-2003) and the Astronomical Institute of Utrecht, The Netherlands (2003-2005). Since 2005 he is affiliated with the National Observatory of Athens (IAASARS and IERSED) and since 2011 he is also working as a research associate at RCAAM, Academy of Athens, Greece. He has been a visiting solar observer at Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife and Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos in La Palma, Spain. His research interests include Solar Physics (observations and data analysis, spectroscopy, radiative transfer, quiet Sun and active region physics and dynamics), Space Physics and Space Weather

  • Dr S.-H. Park

    • Dr. Sung-Hong Park, obtained his B.Sc. joint honours degree (summa cum laude) in physics and astronomy in February 2005 from Chungnam National University (CNU), South Korea. In 2010, he received his Ph.D. in applied physics (solar physics) from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), USA. Since 2004, he has held 2 research assistant positions and 2 postdoctoral positions in solar physics, working on 9 funded research projects in USA, South Korea and Greece. He has published 20 peer-reviewed articles in high impact factor journals. He has extensive experience in investigating multi-wavelength observational data in order to study the physical properties of plasma during flares (e.g., SOHO, SDO, RHESSI, TRACE, NoRH, NoRP, Hinode, BBSO/NST, GOES, ACE, and Global H-alpha Network). Especially, he was in charge of developing analysis tools to investigate the location, flux variation, and dynamic spectrum of solar radio bursts observed by the Korean Solar Radio Burst Locator (KSRBL) in KASI. He also developed analytical models for radio emission from loop-top hard X-ray sources in flares in collaboration with Dr. Gregory Fleishman (NJIT). Recently he is studying 3D structure (e.g., magnetic null points) and evolution of magnetic fields in the quiet Sun associated with small-scale solar eruptive events from high-resolution solar observations (e.g., SST/CRISP, IRIS).

    Also worked in the project
  • Dr I. Kontogiannis

    • Dr Ioannis Kontogiannis received his Physics Degree in 2004, his M.Sc in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Mechanics in 2006 from Physics Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In 2013 he received his PhD in Solar Physics from the same Department. He works at the Eugenides Foundation as a science communicator since 2007. In 2009 and 2010 he worked as a research associate in the project 'Study of small scale solar phenomena, using observations from SoHO (ESA) and ground telescopes' of ISARS. Since early 2014, he works as a post-doctoral research associate in IAASARS-NOA. His research interests include Solar Physics, quiet Sun, small scale structures in the solar atmosphere, magnetohydrodynamic waves, solar spectroscopy.

  • Dr M. Madjarska

  • Dr E. Scullion