Andreas Gerasimos Michalitsianos

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. Andreas' father, Gerasimos Andreas Michalitsianos, was a sea captain of the Greek molasses tanker S.S. Foundation Star. Gerasimos died however, after his ship was caught up in a hurricane and sunk on September 24, 1952 off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, in which Andreas' father died shortly after of pneumonia after he and some of the crew had been rescued by the United States Coast Guard. Andreas showed an early interest in astronomy and physics from the age of 16, during when he was president of the Junior Astronomy Club in NYC in which his accomplishments included leading a South American eclipse expedition. Later on, he would graduate from Newtown High School in 1965 and then earn 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, and later worked as a 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 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.

Michalitsianos died on October 29, 1997 in Baltimore, Maryland after a long struggle with brain tumor. Until his last days he was hard at work rejuvinating 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, whom reside in Severna Park, Maryland.

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