(you can learn about my early inspirations here and my formal CV here)

My Journey so far

I was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, the capital of modern greek Macedonia, a beautiful port city of 1.5 million with a long 2300 year old history, named after the sister of Alexander the Great. Mount Olympus was often visible during my long walks by the seaside, and the shadow of the statue of Alexander the Great looked impressive during the sunsets. Thessaloniki is an interesting city in many respects - apart from its original Ancient Greek / Macedonian heritage, it served as the second most important city of the Byzantine Empire after Constantinopole (the "synvasilevousa"), and during Ottoman times, it was composed of a unique tri-religious mix: Greek Orthodox Christian, Jewish, and Muslim - all still visible in many monuments of the city. Me having grown up in Thessaloniki, my ancestors also came from numerous other places were Hellenes once lived or still live: such as Chios, Serres, as well as Eastern Thrace and Constantinopole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Originally, I had started out very young as an amateur in electronics and computing, and I still remember the fun I had programming my ZX Spectrum, and designing as well as building analog / digital / microcontroller-based electronics projects during late primary and secondary school, back in the late '80s.

After finishing high-school at the Anatolia College, I pursued a five-year Engineering Diploma (M.Eng.) at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Electrical and computer engineering was an obvious choice for me given my amateur background; at university I also formalized and strengthened my inherent mathematical skills. In parallel to my ECE studies I also obtained a distance learning BSc in maths from the UK Open University. In essence, I just formalized my personal study of pure maths as a hobby. I thoroughly enjoyed studying with the OU, and the courses taken included group theory, discrete maths, mathematical logic, number theory, as well as a course in music: history, morphology, harmony.

My next step was crossing the atlantic and landing ar LA, where I pursued an MS in Electrical Engineering. My MS at UCLA focused on control theory and signal processing, and was mainly theoretical. However, my project there was IRIS, a camera-based sensor for an automotive cruise control system, where I did mostly hardware and vision stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later, I returned to Greece in order to carry out my military obligations. I worked for a year at ITI, and served as an airman at the HAF (Hellenic Air Force). At ITI (Informatics and Telematics Institute), the largest relevant research lab in my home city of Thessaloniki, I worked in the face recognition part of the EU project HiScore, and also guided two undergrad thesis in relevant areas.

During these years, I also took a couple of grad courses from the OU, in nonlinear DE's, brain & behaviour and medical imaging, to expand my horizons and keep my brain working, mainly during the days of my military service.

Finally, I decided to continue towards my PhD, which was awarded in 2007, at MIT's famous Media Laboratory, and thus crossed the Atlantic once more. You can find more on my research here. The Media Laboratory is quite unique in comparison to other traditional departments - it is an exciting crossroads of disciplines and traditions. Well, it seems that in these times of specialisation, nothing could really move me away from Plato's quadrivium or the rennaiscance ideal of the Homo Universalis...