Speaker
Description
Dr. Spyromilio is a senior astronomer at the European Southern Observatory. His research interests are focused on supernovae and their use in understanding the physics of explosions. He was a member of the high-z team that co-discovered the acceleration of the expansion of the universe (for which we were all awarded the Gruber prize, more recently the Breakthrough prize and for which Brian and Adam were awarded the Nobel prize for physics) and was a member of the ESSENCE collaboration that continued that work. He participated in work on beta Pic, comets, brown dwarfs, planetary nebulae etc.
He is currently the telescope scientist for ESO’s ELT.
In 2015 and 2016 he headed the project scientists’ department at ESO. From 2012 to 2014 he was the programme scientist for the EELT (European-Extremely Large Telescope, now the ELT). In 2013 he was seconded by ESO to SKA for one year. At the SKA organization headquarters at Jodrell Bank he worked on setting up the design effort (head of project). 2011 was a science leave year (as a distinguished visitor at the AAO in Australia and visiting in Tuorla and Stockholm). From mid-2006 until the end of 2010 he headed the EELT project office at ESO. In 2005 he was appointed Director of the merged La Silla Paranal Observatory. La Silla Paranal observatory operates the La Silla, Paranal and APEX sites. From 1997 to 2004 he headed the commissioning effort at the VLT and later was deputy director of Paranal.
(Credits to Jason Spyromilio's website)
