About Me

Timeline

1980: Born in Nicosia, Cyprus
1982: Move into Thessaloniki, Greece
1997: Finish high school in Ano Poli, Thessaloniki
1998: Got into the Computer Science Department of the Technological Educational Institute (TEI), Thessaloniki, Greece
2002: Finished my course with Distinction and immediately started an MSc in Kings College, London (Computing and Internet Systems)
2003: Finished my MSc with Distinction
2004 (1/2): Received a three year scholarship to pursue a PhD in Hybrid Grid Computing
2004 (2/2): Started work as a Visiting Lecturer/Tutor at the University of Westminster
2006: Started work as a Lecturer at the University of Sunderland and the University of Northern Virginia (London Campuses)
2007 (1/3): Started work as a Research Associate at the University of Westminster in May after finishing writing up my Thesis
2007 (2/3): Successfully defended my PhD Thesis in November!
2007 (3/3): Started work as a Research Fellow at the University of Westminster after finishing my PhD

The Basics

I am currently a Research Fellow at the University of Westminster in London, having just finished my PhD there. I work mainly in the area of Grid and Pervasive Computing while generally enjoying large scale distributed systems, parallel computing, mobile computing and other related areas. I have a thing for physics and cosmology although my favorite interest has to be music “digging”!

The early years

I grew up in Thessaloniki the capital of Macedonia, Greece. I was born in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1980 as my parents spent there almost three years. My father, Achilleas is from Thessaloniki while my mother, Despoina is from Crete. They met in Athens where they were studying… My sister, Eleni, was born in 1976 in Kozani and my younger brother, Michael, in 1989 in Thessaloniki… As you can see we cover the whole Greece and part of Cyprus!

Spenting just one year of my life in Cyprus (and of course I don’t remember anything at all…) I then moved into Thessaloniki where I grew up and went to school. We now live in Ano Poli, Thessaloniki, where we moved in in 1989 (from Kalamaria). It’s more of a residential area, pretty quiet with parks and cobblestone pavements everywhere (not very good for the cars though).

The First degree

After finishing highschool in 1997 I had to take the Pan-Hellenic exams twice (1997 and 1998) before I earned a place in a course I liked… And that was the Computer Science department of the Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki (TEI).

I earned my first degree in Computer Science there. The course spanned four years and included six months of work placement which I spent in the United Nations Centre in Thessaloniki. I finished my course achieving 86% and having gathered loads of experiences. I then immediately left for London.

London!

I did my MSc course in Computing and Internet Systems in King’s College, London. That was my first year in England and was a huge experience for me. London truly is the capital of Europe and is a magnificent metropolis. 2002-2003 was a breathtaking year, where I expanded my mind and experiences towards all directions. I finally managed to get my degree with distinction achieving (again) 86%.

The quest for the PhD

September 2003 I met with Prof. Vladimir Getov to discuss the possibility of joining his research group (High Performance and Distributed Computing Group). He was very positive and so I started my PhD the next year (2004). I managed to submit my Thesis in July 2007 and successfully defend it on the 5th of November same year!

Research Fellow

In the mid of 2007 I started working as a Research Associate having just finished writing up my PhD Thesis, while right after my PhD defence, I got a Research Fellow position in the University and in collaboration with the GridCOMP European Development Project.