Once upon a time...

This page has been following its author, who, in the summer of 1985, left his home in Greece and has been traveling around the world searching for Ithaca. It moved from the great planes of the Midwest, to the city of lights, and back to a server located in upstate New York. Finally in the spring of 2005, nearly 20 years after the trip begun, he ended up in Crete the largest island of Greece and the southern most point of Europe.

In the fall of 1995, I was encouraged to fulfill my doctorate requirements. I did some teaching in the spring of 1996 and visited the Australia Telescope National Facility for a couple of months during that summer. In the meantime I was given the opportunity to continue doing research in astronomy while living in Paris - France not Paris - Texas...

After some serious pondering which lasted about 3 seconds I decided to accept the offer. I had great time working as a postdoc[1] for a year at the astrophysics section of CEA/DAPNIA, which is located at the southern suburbs of Paris. Then things got even better since I moved for a couple of years as a Marie Curie postdoctoral[1] fellow in Paris Observatory and spefically in DEMIRM which was located in downtown Paris, 50m above the catacombes...

In late August 1999, I started my 5.5 years "IRS venture" working as a staff[2] astronomer with the Spitzer Space Telescope group at the Astronomy Department of Cornell University. Cornell is located in Ithaca, a small city of the upstate New York. Not surprisingly, just a few miles west of Ithaca one can find the town of Ulysses (aka "Odysseus"). A bit further north it's the city of Greece and just a few miles east of Ithaca one may enjoy the abundant snow which covers the region for at least six months a year, by going down the slopes of the Greek Peak. In case you don't remember your classical greek studies though, there's another Ithaca around which is 3000 years or so older. Winters there are just bit milder as well...

As mentioned earlier, things came to a nearly full circle by moving in 2005 to a faculty[3] position at the Department of Physics of the University of Crete.

The style of the webpage remained unchanged for 19 years, contrary to the ever changing appearance of the owner... The current facelift took place in May 2012.


Dr. Charm


[1]Postdoc: adj., latin in origin. Usually attributed to an individual who has a doctorate degree but not a real post.
[2]Staff: adj. - (euphemism) - Glorified Postdoc
[3]Faculty: adj. - Innate or acquired ability to act or do - A branch of teaching or learning in an educational institution - Power, authority, or prerogative given or conferred...