Welcome to Ἰάσων Σπυρομίλιος’ web presence site
I am a senior astronomer at the European Southern Observatory. I was born in Athens in 1964 and was educated at the Moraitis school. I read physics both as an undergraduate (1983-1986) and postgraduate (1986-1989) at Imperial College. Following that I was appointed an SERC research fellow (1989-1991) and later a staff member (1991-1994) at the Anglo Australian Observatory. At the AAO I was instrument scientist for UCLES, UHRF (where the Lego train was used to move calibration lamps) and later for IRIS. During that time I developed the IRIS data reduction package. I joined ESO in 1994.
My research interests are focused on supernovae and their use in understanding the physics of explosions whether cosmological or stellar. I was a member of the high-z team that co-discovered the acceleration of the expansion of the universe and am a member of the ESSENCE collaboration. I have participated in work on beta Pic, comets, brown dwarfs, planetary nebulae etc. My refereed publications can be found following this link.
At ESO for a short while I was the instrument scientist for ISAAC then led the NTT project before heading the commissioning effort at the VLT. I was deputy director of Paranal for a few years and was appointed director of the merged La Silla Paranal Observatory in 2005. La Silla Paranal observatory operates the La Silla, Paranal and APEX sites. From mid-2006 until the end of 2010 I headed the EELT project office at ESO.
The first half of 2011 I was on science leave at the Australian Astronomical Observatory. I am now continuing my science year at ESO in Garching.
