V. Charmandaris

Professor of Observational Astrophysics Dr. Charmandaris was born in northern Greece and completed his undergraduate studies in Physics at the University of Thessaloniki in 1989. He continued his graduate studies in the US and obtained his PhD in Astrophysics from Iowa State University in 1995. After a postdoctoral fellowship with the ISO/CAM group at the Astrophysics section of CEA/Saclay (France) he was awarded a Marie Curie fellowship at the Observatoire de Paris, in Paris (France). In 1999 he moved back to the US and spent 6 years at the Astronomy Department of Cornell University, where he worked on the development of the Infrared Spectrograph of the Spitzer Space Telescope, which was launched by NASA in August 2003. In February 2005, Dr. Charmandaris joined the faculty of the Department of Physics of the University of Crete, where he is currently a Professor of Observational Astrophysics. From 2013 until 2018 he served as the Director of the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing of the National Observatory of Athens. From March 2019 until February 2025 he was the first Director of the newly founded Institute of Astrophysics at FORTH as well as the Director of Skinakas Observatory. Since March 2025 he is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of FORTH.