Teaching

I have been teaching a number of courses at the undergraduate and graduate programs of the Dpt. of Computer Engineering and Informatics, University of Patras, Dpt. of Computer Science in Administration and Economy, Dpt. of Business Planning and Information Systems, Dpt. of Bussiness Administration, ATEI of Western Greece and Business Administration, Hellenic Open University. I have also taught postgraduate courses at the Computer Science and Engineering program and the Informatics for Life Sciences Masters program, joint with the Departments of Biology, Medicine, Pharmacy and Physics. I have supervised several student dissertations and masters theses at the departments above. I have recently finished co-supervising 2 Ph.D. theses on semantic interoperability and the evolution of the Web.

Activities

I have served as general chair, technical chair and steering committee member in many international conferences and workshops, including organizing and/or chairing a session at AIAI2020, the MT4BD special session at IEEE INISTA 2019, IFIP SEDSEAL and IEEE SWARCH-DL. I am a program committee member and reviewer for over 40 international journals and conferences and the editor of the Data Journal special issue on Semantics in the Deep: Semantic Analytics for Big Data and the Semantic Web Journal special issue on Semantic Web and Reasoning for Cultural Heritage and Digital Libraries.

I am the recipient of the National Documentation Center (ΕΚΤ) 1st Prize on Applications for Open Data and Repositories for Science & Heritage (Hack@EKT contest, 2015).

Our paper “Subject Classification of Learning Resources Using Word Embeddings and Semantic Thesauri” has received a best paper award at IEEE INISTA 2019.

As of June 2022, our papers “Thesaurus-based Word Embeddings for Automated Biomedical Literature Classification” and “Automated MeSH Indexing of Biomedical Literature Using Contextualized Word Representations” have been included in the Nature Public Health Emergency Collection, under an international Public Health Emergency COVID-19 Initiative.

Our paper “A Review and Implementation of Object Detection Models and Optimizations for Real-time Medical Mask Detection during the COVID-19 Pandemic” has received a best paper award at INISTA 2022.

I am a member of ACM, IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society.

Projects

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I am coordinating the Semantic Web and Interoperability Group (SWIGroup), where I am working on the development of software and models related to Semantic Web technologies and standards. See more

COMFORTAGE - Prediction, Monitoring and Personalized Recommendations for Prevention and Relief of Dementia and Frailty (HORIZON-HLTH-2023-STAYHLTH-01). In the frame of this EU-funded project I am working on research and development of an AI algorithms library for dementia monitoring and prevention as well as novel XAI tools to support accuracy, transparency and personalization of clinical decisions.

I have participated and led a variety of R&D projects with European and national funding including BookSpace, BookTrade, Digitization of the Hellenic Cultural Content, the MINERVA project series, ATHENA, and the University of Patras Operational Programme for Education and Initial Vocational Training (ΕΠΕΑΕΚ II) as well as its extension with innovative actions for semantic annotations of learning material, intelligent search and semantic interoperability.

I have participated in the design and implementation of the students practical training/placement program of the Dpt. of Computer Engineering and Informatics from 2010 onwards. I am a member of the Promotion and Publicity Committee of the department. I have also served as a member of the executive committee of the inter-university Network of Excellence of the University of Patras for Product and Machine Concurrent Engineering (PROCEN) in cooperation with the Dpt. of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics.

I have been appointed deputy National Representative of Greece in the National Representatives Group (NRG) for Coordinating Digitization in Europe and National Expert on Metadata and Interoperability for digitizing and preserving heritage assets. Among others, I have been part of a team for providing state-of-the-art techniques for the digital documentation, promotion and dissemination of information related to museums, archives and heritage institutions, including the Diazoma non-profit organization and the Greek Film Archive, and for developing innovative, semantic tools for their management and preservation.

I am also involved in the evolution, adoption and internationalization (i18n) of educational digital repositories, including the institutional repository of the University of Patras (now Nemertes), of the Hellenic Open University (Apothesis), the Library and Information Services of the University of Thrace, and the DSpace digital repository system.

I am participating at the Interamerican-University of Patras Cooperation Framework to Provide Advanced Technology Information Services, as a Semantic Web expert. I am a member of the high-end advisory committee on behalf of the Computer Engineering and Informatics Dpt., University of Patras, to provide state-of-the-art IT consulting and research to Interamerican Hellas on Big Data management.

Additionally, I am dealing with ontology-supported route planning for cultural tourism (ARIADNE), ontological inference-based access to and management of information for e-democracy in virtual environments (3Democracy) as well as requirements analysis for multimodal digital content generation and Augmented Reality (AR) / Mixed Reality (MR) services (ARCON).