Autor: Oddbjørn Engvold

Jean-Claude Vial has been involved in Space Solar Physics for more than fourty-five years. He was Co-Investigator on several NASA satellite missions and space probes. He is also involved in the EUI and SPICE instrumentations for future ESA Solar Orbiter mission. He was scientific director of the Multi Experiment Data and Operations Center for SOHO in Europe until the end of 2000 and Head of the Solar and Stellar Group at I.A.S. until January 2005. He proposed various space solar missions in the frame of the C.N.E.S. microsatellite program, e.g. LYOT on-board the SMESE satellite, and in 2009, the LYOT-based ECLIPSE instrumentation in the frame of the ESA Proba 3 program. His main research interests are solar prominences, the chromosphere and transition  region, the solar corona. He is now Directeur de Recherche Emerite of C.N.R.S. Oddbjørn Engvold is Professor emeritus of the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo. His main field of research and teaching has been on the physics of Sun and stars. His research has involved solar and stellar dynamics and magnetic activity; with special interest in solar prominences. From 2003 to 2006 he was General Secretary of the IAU. Prof. Engvold was an editor of the journal Solar Physics and is a member of the editorial board of Solar Physics and the book series Astrophysics and Space Science Library.