The operation and policies of the “Observatorios de Canarias”, which celebrated their 30th Anniversary this year, were discussed by its CCI (International Scientific Committee) during a meeting held in the La Laguna University yesterday, Tuesday November 17, in Tenerife. All of the signatory parties to the International Treaty “Agreement on Cooperation in Astrophysics” are members of this committee and through it have a say in the discussion and adoption of agreements affecting these Observatories. Apart from the regular business, a series of reports were presented on the operation and plans

Julien Malzac works at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP) in Toulouse in the south of France, where he holds a Research Scientist position funded by the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique). He graduated in Physics at the Université de Bordeaux (France) and then obtained a PhD in Astrophysics from the Université de Toulouse. After that he worked for several years as a posdoc at the Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Milan (Italy) and then at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge (United Kingdom)

Andrea Possenti has been the Director of the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, where he became staff astronomer in 2004 after finishing a Physics degree at the Università di Milano and a PhD in Astronomy at the Università di Bologna. He spent a few years in Australia during his post-Docs. He is also co-chair of the SKA pulsar working group

Tomorrow, Friday 13th November at 7.00 pm, at the Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos (Museos de Tenerife), Tomaso Belloni of the Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera (Italy) will give a public lecture on "Exploring black holes with a clock". The lecture will be in English with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish.

Tomaso Belloni was a six-year-old kid who wanted to become an astronomer. He succeeded. He graduated in Physics at the Università di Milano (Italy) and then he was a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, near Munich (Germany), and at the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Currently he is an associate professor at the Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera (Italy) and a visiting professor at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom).

Vik Dhillon is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. He took an undergraduate degree in Physics with Astronomy and a PhD in Observational Astrophysics. He has a privileged relationship with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC): he worked , for four years at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM), in the island of La Palma and he is now an “Affiliated Researcher” at the IAC. After his experience in La Palma he moved to the Royal Greenwich Observatory, before attaining his present position.