Académie Royale des Sciences,
des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique
Palais des Académies
Rue Ducale 1
B-1000 Bruxelles
Belgium
Telephone: (+32)(0) 2 550 22 11
Telefax: (+32)(0) 2 550 22 05
André HECK, 60, currently astronomer at
Strasbourg Observatory (France), has been awarded the Paul and Marie Stroobant[1]
Prize 2007 by the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium.
Created in 1950, the Stroobant prize is awarded every other year to a
Belgian or French citizen who has authored the most remarkable
astronomy-related work. The 2007 Academy's Stroobant Prize has been awarded to
Heck for his impressive professional production and in particular for his
pioneering series of volumes entitled "Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy (OSA)",
initiated in Year 2000.
Born Belgian, Heck has been first researcher at the Liège, Belgium,
Institute of Astrophysics before becoming in 1977 one of the founding members
of the observatory set up in Spain by the European Space Agency (ESA) to
exploit the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite [a joint venture
with the US NASA and the UK SERC, now PPARC]. He served as Deputy and Acting
IUE Observatory Director from 1981 to1983. Heck took up a position at
Strasbourg Observatory in 1983 where he served as Director from 1988 to 1990.
Heck obtained his PhD in sciences from the University of Liège in 1975
and a DSc in 1986. The following year, he got a degree
as Research Director from the Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg.
Unconventionally he also secured degrees in management and communication
techniques.
Over his career, Heck moved successfully from field to field, both in
observational and theoretical astronomy. He became a skilled observer with
Schmidt telescopes (discovering a comet in 1973), spent innumerable nights
carrying out photometric measurements (mainly in Chile) and pioneered new
techniques of UV spectroscopy while being in charge of scientific operations on
the IUE spacecraft (leading to a substantial increase of the satellite's useful
life).
Beyond exploiting his own observations of quite a variety of
astrophysical objects, Heck developed methodologies of various kinds:
statistical parallaxes (galactic distance scale), multivariate data analysis
(relationships between photometric and spectroscopic data), and more generally
information handling and mining techniques applied to the large amounts of data
collected by modern instruments and made available today via "virtual
observatories".
Heck played
a key role in getting Strasbourg astronomical Data Center (CDS) recognized as a
world centre of excellence. He was also instrumental in catalyzing
materializations and collaborations in the field of electronic publishing for
astronomy.
Heck has
organized numerous international conferences and is currently preparing another
one to be held in June 2007 at the Palace of the Academies in Brussels on the "Future Professional
Communication in Astronomy (and its impact on evaluation)". Heck has
been himself an invited speaker at many meetings round the world. He is a
prolific author, an editor of reference books and an active science
communicator. Among his editorial production, his latest and successful volumes
entitled Organizations
and Strategies in Astronomy (OSA) (Kluwer/Springer) deserve a special
mention. Interestingly Heck's opening chapter in Volume OSA 1 had reproduced –
in a premonitory connection with the prize he just received – a world map of
astronomy-related organizations drawn by Stroobant and published in 1907.
More details on Heck's activities (as well as contact elements, lists of
publications, photographs, etc.) can be found on the web: http://www.aheck.org/ ,
including a brief curriculum vitae
.
(Brussels, March 2007)
Possible quotations:
Prof. Léo Houziaux, Permanent Secretary of the Belgian Royal Academy:
"The prize committee was impressed by Prof. Heck's scientific
production and in particular by his important and pioneering publications on
astronomy-related organizations."
Recipient André Heck:
"I am deeply honoured by this renowned prize awarded by an
international jury. It recognizes the appropriateness of pioneering new
astronomy-related fields, such as organizational, strategical and sociological
issues. As the initiator and catalyser of the series Organizations and
Strategies in Astronomy (OSA), I feel this recognition should be echoed
over all contributors: the authors of some 150 chapters so far, the
interviewees, as well as the grandees of astronomy who wrote the forewords to
the volumes."
[1] Belgian Astronomer Paul Stroobant (1868-1936) directed
the Royal Observatory in Brussels (1925-1936) and had been nominated Professor
of Astronomy at Brussels University as early as 1896. He presided the "Classe des Sciences" of the Academy in 1931-1932.