Announcement
It is with deep sadness that we note the death of Allan Willis on 3 September 2018. Allan first came to University College London (UCL) to study for an BSc in 1970, in the then Dept. of Astronomy, and was to remain for the rest of his working life.
Allan worked on some of the earliest ultraviolet spectra of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars, obtained with the S2/68 experiment on the TD1-A spacecraft. Awarded his PhD in 1976, he went on to hold posts as an SERC Postdoctoral Research Assistant (1976 79), SERC Advanced Research Fellow (1979-84), and Royal Society University Research Fellow (1984-92). He was promoted to Reader in 1990, and Professor in 1995.
Throughout his career his research continued to revolve principally around UV spectroscopy of WR stars (extensively utilising the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite). His work generated almost 100 refereed-journal publications before he took early retirement at the end of the 2005/6 academic year. As well as supervising a series of PhD students, many of whom have themselves gone on to successful academic careers, he was active in 'astropolitics’ at national and international level, and played a number of enabling roles within the Department at UCL.
Raman Prinja & Ian Howarth
On behalf of the OC of IAUC G2 on massive stars:
Jorick Vink, Nicole St-Louis, Jose Groh, Fabrice Martins, Nidia Morrell, Lida Oskinova, Asif ud-Doula
Weblink:
Email: jorick.vink@armagh.ac.uk