The 7^th annual Nick Kylafis Distinguished Lecture will be given for 2025 by the distinguished astrophysicist Roger Blandford, Luke Blossom Professor at Stanford University (USA).

Professor Blandford’s lecture, which will follow the public ceremony, will be in English and it is entitled “New Horizons in Extreme Electrodynamics of Black Holes and Neutron Stars”. It will take place on Wednesday, 29 October 2025, at 14.00 at the Central Amphitheater of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), with simultaneous webcast.

Professor Blandford is internationally celebrated for his seminal contributions in Theoretical Astrophysics, in particular in the physics of black holes, relativistic jets, and electrodynamics of extreme objects. He has published over 500 refereed papers, which have received over 100,000 citations. He is the recipient of the most prestigious Astrophysics awards including:

• Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy, from the American Astronomical Society (1982)
• Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, from the American Astronomical Society (1998)
• Eddington Medal, from the Royal Astronomical Society (1999)
• Humboldt Prize, from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2011)
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2013)
• Crafoord Prize (2016) – carrying an award of $0.5 million
• Shaw Prize in Astronomy (2020) – carrying an award of $1.2 million

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2012) in the US. He is Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, and Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.

The “Nick Kylafis” Lectureship was established by the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas in 2019 in order to honor Nick Kylafis, Professor Emeritus at the Dept. of Physics of the Univ. of Crete, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, for his 35 years of scientific contributions and leadership towards the founding and continuous improvement of the Astrophysics Group at the University of Crete and FORTH. This lifelong commitment has been instrumental in the international recognition of the research activities of the Crete Astrophysics Group, which led to the creation of the Institute of Astrophysics at FORTH in 2018. Under the auspices of the Lectureship, a distinguished theoretical astrophysicist is invited annually at FORTH for a brief visit.

The Institute of Astrophysics anticipates that establishing the "Nick Kylafis” Lecture will attract distinguished astrophysicists to Crete, who will inspire with their presence the younger generations of scientists trained at FORTH and the University of Crete, and communicate to the wider scientific community of Greece the latest achievements in the rapidly evolving field of Theoretical Astrophysics.

To watch the ceremony and lecture online, you may follow the link:

https://uoc-gr.zoom.us/j/85327652058?pwd=BHGUQCeqHG8mrTjvMZOblV0qTqseVv.1