Andreas Gerasimos Michalitsianos

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Dr. Andreas 'Andy' Gerasimos Michalitsianos (May 22, 1947 – October 29, 1997) was a Greek-American astronomer and a NASA astrophysicist.

Born in Alexandria, Egypt on May 22, 1947, Andreas grew up with his mother, who spoke little English and shortly, with his father. He moved with his family to New York City in 1949 and lived in the Queens borough before going to college. Michalitsianos' father was a sea captain of a Greek tanker but the ship was caught up in a hurricane and sunk on September 24, 1952 off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia in which Michalitsianos' father died of pneumonia shortly after rescue. Andreas showed an early interest in astronomy and physics from the age of 16, when he was president of the Junior Astronomy Club in NYC where his accomplishments included leading a South American eclipse expedition. Later, he graduated from Newtown High School in 1965 and then earned his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Arizona at Tucson in 1969, working at the nearby Kitt Peak National Observatory as a student employee in the Space Division to help pay off his college debts. His duties at Kitt Peak included the initial tests of a remotely-controlled telescope.

Andreas then received a scholarship and earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics from University of Cambridge, Churchill College in 1976 while doing research on a theoretical topic in solar physics. He would later work as a junior research fellow at the California Institute of Technology and then as an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center from the 1970s until his death. Michalitsianos was involved with such projects as the Hubble Space Telescope and was the Deputy Project Manager of the Observatory Branch for NASA Goddard's highly successful International Ultraviolet Explorer, in which he won several awards for his contributions. Michalitsianos eventually went on to become Chief of the Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics at the Goddard Space Flight Center in early 1997, and was renowned for his breakthrough research on symbiotic stars. His many awards included the NASA Meritorious Achievement Award and the promotion to Senior Executive Service of the United States.

Michalitsianos died on October 29, 1997 in Baltimore, Maryland after a long struggle with a brain tumor. Until his last days he was hard at work rejuvenating the Laboratory of which he had recently taken command, and on a proposal for a spacecraft to monitor temporal changes in the ultraviolet and X-ray spectra of stars and active galaxies. He is survived by a wife, two daughters, a sister, and one son.

A landbased robotic telescope on the island of Kefalonia in western Greece is named in his honor. The telescope has been utilized by The Eudoxos Project and such institutions as the University of Athens and the Hellenic Naval Academy.