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, the default extension for an IAU Commission. For a report on the C51 business meeting at the Prague IAU, please click on the image below.

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.

Next Bioastronomy Meeting

Plans are underway to hold a joint meeting with the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life: The International Astrobiology Society (ISSOL) in either 2010 or 2011 at a location to be decided upon.

Commission 51: Bioastronomy

President: Alan Boss

Vice President: William Irvine

Past President: Karen Meech

MEMBERS OF ORGANIZING COMMITTEE (2006-2009)

Name E-mail Address
Dr. Alan Boss (USA) boss(@dtm.ciw.edu) Dept. of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Instituion, 5241 Broad Branch Road, N. W., Washington, D.C. 20015-1305, USA
Dr. Cristiano Cosmovici (Italy) Cristiano.Cosmovici(@ifsi-roma.inaf.it) Istituto Fisica dello Spazio, INAF, Roma, Italy
Dr. Pascale Ehrenfreund (The Netherlands) pascale(@strw.leidenuniv.nl) Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, Einsteinweg 55, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
Dr. William Irvine (USA) irvine(@fcrao1.astro.umass.edu) University of Massachusetts, 619 Lederle Graduate Res. Center, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
Dr. Karen Meech (USA) meech(@ifa.hawaii.edu) Institute for Astronomy, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Dr. David Latham (USA) dlatham(@cfa.harvard.edu) Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., MS 20, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Dr. David Morrison (USA) david.morrison(@nasa.gov) NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
Dr. Stephane Udry (Switzerland) stephane.udry(@obs.unige.ch) Observatoire de Geneve, 51, chemin des Maillettes, CH-1290 Sauverny, Suisse

ACTIVE MEMBERS AND CONSULTANTS

COMMISSION 51 MEETINGS

Dates Meeting Location
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 2009), 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: 11 April 2008