IAU COMMISSION 51: BIOASTRONOMY
OVERVIEW
"Bioastronomy: Search for Extraterrestrial Life" was established as
Commission 51 of the IAU in 1982. The objectives of the commission
include: The search for planets around other stars; The search for radio
transmissions, intentional or unintentional, of extraterrestrial origin;
The search for biologically relevant interstellar molecules and the study
of their formation processes; Detection methods for potential
spectroscopic evidence of biological activity; The coordination of efforts
in all these areas at the international level and the establishment of
collaborative programs with other international scientific societies with
related interests. In 2006, Commission 51 was renamed simply "Bioastronomy"
at the IAU General Assembly in Prague, and approved for the next six years.
For a report on the C51 business meeting at the Prague IAU, please click
on the image below.
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Bioastronomy at the IAU General Assembly
The Business Meeting of C51 on Bioastronomy was held at the IAU General
Assembly, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Wednesday, August 12, from 2:00 pm
to 3:30 pm, in Room 5 of the Convention Center SulAmerica. Presentations
were given about the plans for the first joint meeting with ISSOL
in 2011 (see below) in Montpellier, France, and about the previous
Bioastronomy meeting, held in 2007 in Puerto Rico (see below). Please
click on the image below to see the report of the Business Meeting.
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Bioastronomy 2011 Meeting
The next meeting of Commission 51 will be held jointly
with the International Society for the Study of the Origin of
Life: The International Astrobiology Society (ISSOL) in
Montpellier, France, on July 3-8, 2011. Janet Siefert,
president of ISSOL, and C51 look forward to this experiment
in uniting two major segments of the international astrobiology
community. Please plan on attending this first joint meeting.
For a link to the meeting web site (still under construction),
please click on the image below.
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Bioastronomy 2007 Meeting
One of the main activities of Commission 51 is to organize a
Bioastronomy meeting every three years. The 2007 meeting was
held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from July 16-20, 2007. For a
link to the meeting web site, please click on the image below.
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Commission 51: Bioastronomy Officers (2009-12)
President: William Irvine (United States)
Vice President: Pascale Ehrenfreund (Netherlands)
Past President: Alan Boss (United States)
MEMBERS OF ORGANIZING COMMITTEE (2009-2012)
| Name |
| Anny-Chantal Levasseur-Regourd (France)
|
| Sun Kwok (Hong Kong)
|
| David Morrison (United States)
|
| Stephane Udry (Switzerland)
|
| Cristiano Cosmovici (Italy)
|
Commission 51: Bioastronomy Officers (2006-09)
President: Alan Boss
Vice President: William Irvine
Past President: Karen Meech
Members of Organizing Committee (and year in which term
began)
| Name |
Year |
E-mail |
Address |
| Dr. Alan Boss (USA) | 2003 | boss(@dtm.ciw.edu)
| Dept. of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution, 5241 Broad
Branch Road, N. W., Washington, D.C. 20015-1305, USA |
| Dr. Cristiano Cosmovici (Italy) | 2004 |
cosmo(@ifsi-roma.inaf.it) | Istituto Fisica dello
Spazio, INAF, Roma, Italy |
| Dr. Pascale Ehrenfreund (The Netherlands) | 2004 |
pascale(@strw.leidenuniv.nl) | Leiden Institute of Chemistry,
Leiden University, Einsteinweg 55, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands |
| Dr. William Irvine (USA) | 2006 |
irvine(@fcrao1.astro.umass.edu) | University of Massachusetts,
619 Lederle Graduate Res. Center, Amherst, MA 01003, USA |
| Dr. Karen Meech (USA) | 2001 | meech(@ifa.hawaii.edu) |
Institute for Astronomy, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA |
| Dr. David Latham (USA) | 2000 | dlatham(@cfa.harvard.edu) | Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., MS 20, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA |
| Dr. David Morrison (USA) | 2004 | david.morrison(@nasa.gov) | NASA Ames
Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA |
| Dr. Stephane Udry (Switzerland) | 2004 | stephane.udry(@obs.unige.ch)
| Observatoire de Geneve, 51, chemin des Maillettes, CH-1290 Sauverny,
Suisse |
COMMISSION 51 MEETINGS
| Dates |
Meeting |
Location |
| Jul 3-8, 2011 | Bioastronomy/ISSOL 2011 |
Montpellier, France |
| Jul 16-20, 2007 | Bioastronomy 2007 |
San Juan, Puerto Rico |
| Jul 12-16, 2004 | Bioastronomy 2004 |
Reykjavik, Iceland |
| Jul 8-12, 2002 | Bioastronomy 2002 |
Great Barrier Reef, Australia |
| Aug 2-6, 1999 | Bioastronomy 1999 |
Big Island, Hawaii |
| Jul 1-5, 1996 | Bioastronomy 1996 |
Capri, Italy |
| Aug 16-20, 1993 | Bioastronomy 1993 |
Santa Cruz, California |
| Jun 18-23, 1990 | Bioastronomy 1990 |
Val Cenis, France |
| Jun 22-27, 1987 | Bioastronomy 1987 |
Balaton, Hungary |
| Jun 18-21, 1984 | Bioastronomy 1984 |
Boston, Massachusetts |
HOW TO JOIN COMMISSION 51 AND THE IAU
Any IAU member who is interested in becoming a member of Commission 51
should write or e-mail the President of the Commission with a brief note
regarding his/her interest in the work of the Commission.
The applicant will be provisionally accepted for membership and will
thereafter be sent all communications. The application will be forwarded
to the Organizing Committee and formal approval of the application will be
made at the Commission business meeting at the following IAU General
Assembly.
Applications for membership in the IAU are invited about a year before
each General Assembly (the next General Assembly is in 2012), through the
national Adhering Organizations. In the US, application forms are provided
in the AAS Newsletter. Normally, minimum requirements are a Ph.D. plus 2-3
years experience in astronomical research resulting in a few publications
in refereed journals, but it is up to the US National Committee to
prioritize the applications they receive before making their proposals for
membership to the IAU.
The IAU Secretariat's mailing (and e-mail) address is:
IAU
Institut d'Astrophysique
98bis, bd. Arago
F-75014 Paris (France)
Tel: (33) 143258358
Fax: (33) 143252616
E-mail: iau@iap.fr.
IAU homepage: http://www.iau.org
Last updated: 18 August 2009
