Juan Antonio BELMONTE Avilés is a Research Professor who holds a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of La Laguna (1989), where he has also studied Egyptian hieroglyps. He develops his work at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), where he carries out research in exoplanetology and cultural astronomy.
He has been Director of the Science and Cosmos Museum of Tenerife (MCC, 1995-2000), President of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC, 2005-2011), the International Society for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture (ISAAC, 2017-2020) and the Time Allocation Committee (CAT) of the Canary Islands Observatories (2003-2012). He received in 2012 the “Carlos Jaschek” Award in Cultural Astronomy for his contribution to the field.
Since IYA2009, he has been deeply involved in the development of the “Astronomy and World Heritage” initiative within UNESCO and the IAU. Author or Editor or more than 20 books, since August 2021, he is President of the IAU Commission C4 “World Heritage and Astronomy”.