Friday, December 7, 2012

Giovanni Sostero 1964 - 2012

It is with deep sadness that we share with you the loss of our dear friend Giovanni Sostero. Giovanni was a great person, a great astronomer and above all the best of friends!




A tribute to Giovanni on Universe Today website and on the Italian astronomy magazine Coelum (Page 1 & Page 2).

By clicking here you can hear the last audio interview (in Italian) by Giovanni to the "Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica" (National Institute for Astrophysics), or INAF in occasion of our discovery of fragmentation of comet 168P on October 2012.

A piece in memory of Giovanni on the February 2013 issue of "The Astronomer" magazine. (click on the image below for a bigger version)


UPDATE - July 08, 2013

Giovanni Sostero Award

During the MEADOW 2013 workshop (MEtrology, Astronomy, Diagnostics and Optics Workshop) an award in memory of Giovanni Sostero will be attributed to a distinguished scientist in the field of metrology.

"The award would like to remember and honor Giovanni Sostero, formerly in charge of the soft x-ray metrology laboratory at Elettra, who sadly passed away in late 2012. The scientific activity of Giovanni, who was also extremely active in the field of astronomy, will be also illustrated through a dedicated presentation during the workshop itself, while the award ceremony will be held during the workshop dinner on the evening of October, 29th."

The MEADOW 2013 workshop (MEtrology, Astronomy, Diagnostics and Optics Workshop) will be held in Trieste from the 28th to the 30th of October 2013, at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP).

UPDATE - November 05, 2013

On October 29, during the MEADOW 2013 workshop (MEtrology, Astronomy, Diagnostics and Optics Workshop) held in Trieste, it has been assigned an award in memory of Giovanni Sostero to Peter Z. Takacs del Brookhaven National Laboratory, a distinguished scientist in the field of metrology (see previous update). Before the award ceremony, Marco Fulle and Giannantonio Milani made two talks to remember Giovanni and his astronomical work. Below you can find some photos taken during the event (thanks to Martino Nicolini). Click on each image for a bigger version.





















UPDATE - December 07, 2015

The "Giovanni Sostero" award has been assigned to scientist Frank Siewert in a ceremony during the 6th “International Workshop on X-Ray Optics and Metrology” which was held from July 14th–16th at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California USA. "Frank Siewert was honored in particular for his contributions on the development of latest metrology for Synchrotron Optics. He has “pushed the limits of X-ray optics metrology to an unprecedented level and gave a collaborative and constructive support to the international community on metrology for X-ray optics” as the awarding committee pointed out."

The award was established for the first time at the MEADOW workshop in Trieste (see previous update). The award is granted every 3rd year in memory of Giovanni Sostero who formerly was in charge of the Soft X-ray Metrology Laboratory at Elettra in Trieste. It honors scientists who contributed significantly to the development of the metrology for latest X-ray optics.


Credit: https://sites.google.com/a/lbl.gov/iwxrom2015/giovanni-sostero-award

UPDATE - December 06, 2018

At the last International Workshop on X-ray Optics and Metrology (IWXM) workshop held in Taiwan on June 06 - 09, 2018, the award ceremony for the third “Giovanni Sostero Award” for Metrology was celebrated.

"This year, the award – bestowed upon a distinguished X-ray Metrology personality – went to Dr. Shinan Qian of the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Dr. Qian was a collaborator and close friend of Giovanni Sostero (they are shown together in picture below)."

Credit: Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste

The commemorative plaque was delivered to Dr. Shinan Qian – who could not attend the workshop – at his study in Brookhaven. Click on the images below for a bigger version (all image credit belongs to Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste).







by Ernesto Guido

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of the discoverers of the Nova in M31. Such a shame and very saddened by the loss.

[http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/07500/07516.html]

Anonymous said...

I am so sorry to hear of your dear friend Giovanni, my heartfelt sympathy goes to his family, and you's, his dear friend's, I am so sorry.
Lynn

Anonymous said...

R.I.P.