The 6^th annual Nick Kylafis Distinguished Lecture was given for 2024 by the distinguished astrophysicist David Spergel, President of the Simons Foundation and Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy Emeritus at Princeton University (USA). Moreover, from 2016 until 2021 Professor Spergel was the founding Director of the Center for Computational Astrophysics of the Flatiron Institute in New York, which is supported by the Simons Foundation.

Professor Spergel’s lecture, which followed the public ceremony, was held in English and it was entitled “The current state of cosmology”. It took place on Friday, 27 September 2024, at 14.00 at the Central Amphitheater of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), with simultaneous webcast.

Professor Spergel is internationally recognized for his seminal contributions in Theoretical Astrophysics and Cosmology, in particular for the calculation of key parameters determining the formation and the evolution of the Universe as well as the nature of the dark matter. He has published over 400 refereed papers, which have received over 130,000 citations. In addition, he has received several highly prestigious awards including:

• Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy, from the American Astronomical Society (1994)
• Shaw Prize in Astronomy (2010) – (known as the “Nobel of the East” carrying an award of $1.2 million)
• Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, from the American Astronomical Society (2015)
• Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2018).

Professor Spergel is also member of several prestigious academies, such as the National Academy of Sciences (2007) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2012) in the US. He was selected among the 25 “Most Influential Space Scientists” by Time magazine in 2012, as well as, among the 10 most important scientists in 2014 according to the scientific journal Nature.

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 to 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.