Team

Bonanos Alceste (P.I.) bonanos [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Alceste obtained her B.A. in Physics and Astronomy from Wellesley College (USA) in 2000, her M.A. in Astronomy from Harvard University (USA) in 2002 and her PhD in Astronomy from Harvard University (USA) in 2005. She was a Vera Rubin Fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science (USA) from 2005-2008, and a Giacconi Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute (USA) from 2008-2009. She joined IAASARS, National Observatory of Athens, in September 2009 and since December 2022 is a Research Director. Research Interests: Observational Extragalactic Stellar Astrophysics, with emphasis on massive stars and the extragalactic distance scale. She has been working mainly on problems related to massive stars in nearby galaxies, stellar variability and near-earth objects.
Gonzalo Munoz-Sanchez (PhD student) gonzalom [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Gonzalo is a PhD student who obtained the BSc degree in Physics in Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM, Spain) in 2018 and the MSc in Astrophysics (ULL, Spain) in 2021 where he completed his master thesis, titled “Chemical abundances in extended planetary nebulae”. During these years, he could enjoy some fellowships in diverse fields such as astronomy instrumentation at IAC (Spain) or the study of massive stars at CAB (CSIC, Spain). Currently, he enjoys a PhD supervised by Dr. Bonanos and he is part of the ASSESS team unraveling the role of episodic mass loss in the evolution of massive stars and its role in the early Universe.
Konstantinos Antoniadis (PhD student) k.antoniadis [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Konstantinos Antoniadis finished his bachelor studies at the Physics department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2018. In 2020, he completed his master studies at the Gravitation, Astro- and Particle Physics (GRAPPA) Institute, at the University of Amsterdam, specialising in the fields of Cosmology and Astrophysics. His master thesis was written under the supervision of Prof. Dr. G. Bertone and Dr. B.J. Kavanagh with a title “A Deep Look into Dark Matter Spikes: Theoretical Prediction and N-body Simulations”. Since January 2022, he is part of the ASSESS team under the supervision of Dr. Bonanos and he is a PhD student at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens researching the episodic mass loss of massive stars. (In his free time he plays music having also attended classical music lessons at the Municipal’s Conservatory of Naousa in the past).
Evangelia Christodoulou (PhD student) evachris [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Evangelia Christodoulou has graduated from the department of physics of the University of Patras in 2019. She received her MSc from the University of Athens in 2021. Her master thesis was titled “White Dwarfs in our Galaxy using Gaia EDR3 data”. She was supervised by professor Despina Hatzidimitriou. Since January 2022, she is part of the ASSESS team under the supervision of Dr. Bonanos and is also a PhD student at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens researching the episodic mass loss of massive stars.
Stella Avgousti (MSc student) savgousti [at] di [dot] uoa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Stella Avgousti graduated from the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2019. She is a master student in the inter-institutional master studies program “Space Technologies, Applications and Services – STAR”, which is offered by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Polytechnic School of the University of Patras. Her master thesis will focus on the cross-matching of Gaia data with products of the machine-learning tool developed in the framework of the ASSESS project. She has been working as a software engineer in the private sector since 2016.

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Past Members

Grigoris Maravelias (Postdoc 2018-2024) maravelias [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Grigoris graduated from the School of Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences of the National Technical University of Athens (Greece) in 2004. After the completion of his MSc from the University of Crete in 2007, he served as a laser technician at the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH, Greece). In 2010, he succeeded in acquiring funding from the State Scholarship Foundation of Greece that allowed him to obtain a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Crete in 2014. Then, he moved on to work as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Czechia, 2014-2016), the Universidad de Valapaiso (Chile, 2017), and at the University of Crete and FORTH (Greece, 2017-2018). From September 2018 to August 2024 he was employed at IAASARS-NOA, working on the ASSESS project. Research Interests: Observational Astrophysics, with a focus on massive stars, X-ray binaries, variable stars, circumstellar matter, stellar populations in other galaxies, exoplanets. Other interests include Machine-learning applications, Professional-Amateur networking and collaborations, and Openness in Astronomy. Moved to: PeriAstron, Greece
Stephan de Wit (PhD student 2018-2024 Postdoc 2024 May-Sep) sdewit [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Stephan is a Dutch student, who received a Bachelor degree in Physics & Astronomy in 2016 at the Anton Pannekoek Institute of Astrophysics (API) at the University of Amsterdam. In 2018, he received a Masters degree under the supervision of Prof. de Koter from the API institute. The title of his MSc thesis was “Characterizing the properties of the VFTS 176 binary in the 30 Doradus starburst region”. As of March 2019, Stephan joined the ASSESS team under supervision of Dr. Bonanos, to help ‘assess’ one of the outstanding questions in astrophysics: the role of episodic mass loss in evolved massive stars. He is registered as a PhD student at the University of Athens. Defended: May 2024 Moved to: Private Sector, Netherlands
Manos Zapartas (Postdoc 2022-2023) zapartas [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Manos Zapartas obtained his Degree in Physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2012. After finishing his Master Degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Anton Pannekoek Institute of the University of Amsterdam in October 2014, he also obtained his PhD Degree there, in 2018, under the supervision of Selma de Mink and Alex de Koter. He continued as a postdoctoral reasearcher at the Univesity of Geneva, in the group of Tassos Fragos until the end of 2021, partly funded from the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship for Foreign Students. From March 2022 up to August 2023 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Observatory of Athens, participating in the ERC project of ASSESS. Research Interests: Evolution of massive stars (singles and binaries) at their later stages and their end fate, red supergiants, supernovae and their stellar progenitors, compact object binaries. In general, stellar evolution and modelling of (binary) stellar populations. Moved to: Institute of Astrophysics, FORTH, Greece
Frank Tramper (Postdoc 2019-2021) ftramper [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Frank obtained his BSc (2008), MSc (2010), and PhD (2014) in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy of the University of Amsterdam. Following his PhD he remained in Amsterdam for a PostDoc of one year. In January 2016 he obtained a 3 year research fellowship from the European Space Agency, and was based at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre near Madrid. From January 2019 until October 2021, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at IAASARS, working on the ASSESS project and has since moved to KU Leuven. Research Interests: The spectroscopic study of massive stars in their various stages of evolution (e.g., O-type, Luminous Blue Variables, Wolf-Rayets). Areas of particular interest are the effect of metallicity on the physical properties of these stars and their stellar winds, and stars in their most advanced evolutionary stages. Moved to: Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven, Belgium
Ming Yang (Postdoc 2019-2022) myang [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Ming obtained his B.Sc. in Astronomy in 2006 from the Department of Astronomy, Beijing Normal University and his M.Sc. in Astrophysics from the same institute. In 2012, he obtained his Ph.D. in Astrophysics also from the same institute. The title of the dissertation was: “The Infrared Properties and Period-Luminosity Relations of Red Supergiant Stars in the Magellanic Clouds”. In 2012-2015, he was a LAMOST Fellow and support astronomer at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences working for the LAMOST survey. In June 2015, he started as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Observatory of Athens, participating in the ESA project “Hubble Catalog of Variables”. Starting in May 2019 he became part of the ASSESS team and since May 2022, he is continuing to collaborate from China, with his new affiliation at the Key Laboratory of Space Astronomy and Technology, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. Research Interests: The physical properties of intrinsically variable stars, the pulsation and oscillation of late-type stars, infrared properties of evolved stars and their dust, asteroseismology of sun-like and massive stars, astrostatistics, star formation in nearby/high-redshift galaxies, galaxy formation and evolution, identification and kinematic analysis of galaxy cluster. Moved to: Key Laboratory of Space Astronomy and Technology, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Stathis Athanasiou (MSc student 2022-2023) athanasiou [at] noa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Stathis Athanasiou graduated from the department of physics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2020. In 2023, he completed the master student in the master program of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and of the University of Patras called “Space Technologies, Applications and Services (STAR)”. His master thesis addressed the topic of mass loss rates of massive stars through observations made with Hubble Space Telescope and within the framework of the ERC ASSESS project. He is currently serving in the armed forces in Greece. Defended: April 2023 Moved to: Private Sector, Greece
Aimilia Tsopela (Summer student) aimilia.a.tsopela.25 [at] dartmouth [dot] edu NASA/ADS list	Aimilia Tsopela is currently pursuing her bachelor’s degree at Dartmouth College, bound to graduate in 2025. She intends to complete a double major in physics combined with astronomy, as well as philosophy. In hopes of pursuing a future in academia– particularly in astronomy research– she joined the ASSESS team in June of 2022, under the guidance of Alceste Bonanos.
Anna Philippopoulou (Summer student) … [at] … [dot] edu NASA/ADS list	Anna Philippopoulou has just completed her IB degree and is about to start her studies in Physics at the University of Oxford in the UK. She has previously attended an online course offered by the University of Arizona on Astronomy. She became part of the ASSESS team in June of 2023.
Maria Kalitsounaki (internship) sph1900075 [at] uoa [dot] gr NASA/ADS list	Maria Kalitsounaki is currently a fourth-year Bachelor student in Physics department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her main area of interest lies in the field of Astrophysics and she is working on her Bachelor thesis in High Energy Astrophysics since January 2023. In July 2023 she joined the ASSESS team, where she is undertaking her internship under the supervision of Dr. Bonanos.