Santa Cruz de Tenerife (EFE).- The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, on Friday reiterated the government's commitment to the excellent research and science carried out on the islands during a meeting with the new director of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), Valentín Martínez Bellet.
At the meeting, Fernando Clavijo referred to the proposal of the Government of the Canary Islands to transfer science into the productive system in the form of innovation and technological development, as indicated by the regional executive in a statement.
The meeting was also attended by the Director General of Organic Coordination and Strategic Projects of the Government of the Canary Islands, David Pérez Diones, and the current President of the IAC, Rafael Rebollo.
Valentin Martínez Billet, who will take up his position next Monday, July 1, as the new Director of the IAC, is a Research Professor at this Center and, since 2013, Director of the US National Solar Observatory (NSO) in the Special Services.
Under his leadership, this American observatory built the world's largest solar telescope, D-KIST, which was installed in Hawaii.
In addition, he was the engineer for moving NSO's corporate headquarters from Arizona and New Mexico to Colorado and Hawaii, which presented a challenge in both logistics and human resources management.
In his decade in the United States, Martínez Billet also defined the Next Generation Project GONG, which stands for the Global Oscillation Network Group and is a global network for observing the Sun 24 hours a day.
Martínez-Bellet's areas of work as a researcher are solar magnetism and its measurement using spectroscopic polarimetry techniques and ground-based and space-based astronomical instruments.
He has collaborated on numerous international projects in the field of heliophysics and space instrumentation, and was Head of the Solar and Heliospheric Section of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) between 2009 and 2012.
