The Assembly of Academicians of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences elected as a foreign member of BAS Prof. Konstantinos Georgiou Nihoritis from Greece. He is a distinguished Greek Old Bulgarian scholar and theologian with numerous publications on Bulgarian cultural history and its links with Athos. He is a graduate of the Athonias Ecclesiastical Academy (1976) and the Sofia Theological Academy (1981). He is currently a professor at the Faculty of Slavonic, Balkan and Oriental Studies at the Macedonian University of Thessaloniki. More information about Prof. Nihoritis can be seen here.
During its meeting on March 14, 2023, the Assembly of Academicians also elected two Bulgarian scientists as Associate Members of AACM – Prof. Ivan Kostov and Prof. Dimitar Sasselov.
Prof. Ivan Kostov was born on February 5, 1953 in Vidin, graduated in atomic physics at Sofia University (1975), defended his dissertation at Moscow University (under Prof. A. A. Migdal) in 1982. He is the author of 100 papers, cited over 5940 times; at home, in the Laboratory “Theory of Elementary Particles” of INRNE-BAS he wrote a pioneering paper Critical Properties of Triangulated Planar Random Surfaces (1985, cited over 740 times). Since 1990 he has been on permanent appointment at CEA, Saclay, France. Prof. Kostov is the winner of the Grand Prix Servant de l’Academie des Sciences (2007), Associate Professor at CERN, Geneva (1997-1998) and at the Yukawa Institute, Kyoto (2000-2001), Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), Rutgers University, Santa Barbara, Stony Brook, Tokyo, in Trieste, in Brazil, in China. He also maintains close scientific ties with his colleagues in Bulgaria: he presents papers at the Theoretical Physics Seminar at INRNE-BAS, lectured (in 2017) at the Faculty of Physics of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, has presented papers at 6 international conferences in Bulgaria and is the organizer of a Workshop in Varna in August 2022 (with the support of the Simons Foundation).
Prof. Dimitar Susselov was born on August 15, 1961 in Nessebar, Bulgaria. His scientific interests are related to the study of atmospheres and inner layers of stars and planets, and also to the formation of the first helium and hydrogen atoms in the Universe. One of his most significant achievements was the discovery of Earth-like exoplanets. Prof. Susselov is one of the leading researchers on the team of the Kepler space telescope and its extension, the TESS space telescope. Prof. Susselov is the author of over 700 scientific publications (including in Science and Nature), cited over 40,000 times. His h-index is 89.
As associate members of the Assembly of Academicians and Corresponding Members of BAS are elected Bulgarian scientists or artists who work and live permanently abroad. An Associate Member of AACM contributes to the international renown and prestige of BAS, science and art in Bulgaria, as well as to the integration of young Bulgarian scientists or artists into the international scientific and cultural community.
