Welcome to Ἰάσων Σπυρομίλιος’ web presence site.
I am a senior astronomer at the European Southern Observatory. My research interests are focused on supernovae and their use in understanding the physics of explosions. I was a member of the high-z team that co-discovered the acceleration of the expansion of the universe (for which we were all awarded the Gruber prize, more recently the Breakthrough prize and for which Brian and Adam were awarded the Nobel prize for physics) and was a member of the ESSENCE collaboration that continued that work. I have participated in work on beta Pic, comets, brown dwarfs, planetary nebulae etc. My refereed publications can be found following this link.
I am the telescope scientist for ESO’s ELT.
I have been working on the EELT in various capacities since 2006. I headed the design office from 2006 to 2011 and have been the programme scientist and more recently the telescope scientist for the project. In 2013 I was seconded by ESO to SKA for one year. At the SKA organization headquarters at Jodrell Bank I worked on setting up the design office (head of project). I was Director of the the merged La Silla Paranal Observatory. La Silla Paranal observatory operates the La Silla, Paranal and APEX sites. From 1997 to 2004 I headed the commissioning team at the VLT and later was deputy director and telescope scientist of Paranal. From mid-95 to mid-97 I led the NTT upgrade project. I was hired at ESO in 1994 as instrument scientist for ISAAC. 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 read physics both as an undergraduate (1983-1986) and postgraduate (1986-1989) at Imperial College.
I can be reached at jason.spyromilio (at) eso.org
