Miscellanea:Short Bio

Originally, I'm from Patra(s), Greece. Patras is famous about its Carnival (3 biggest in the world) and for hosting St. Andrew's relics and cross. Patras was also the European Cultural Capital of Europe in 2006. It's sister city here in the US is Savannah, Georgia. You can learn more about Patras at Wikipedia.

I came to the US in May of 1995 after obtaining my 5-year Electrical Engineering Diploma from the University of Patras. Since then I stayed in Orlando (see also here), Florida. I got my my Master's and Ph.D. degrees, both in Electrical Engineering, from the University of Central Florida in 1997 and 2001 respectively.

During the period 1997-2001 I worked as a software engineer at Cirent in Orlando, Florida, which was a joint venture of Lucent Technologies and Cirrus Logic and later became part of Agere Systems. During 2002 I lectured in the Computer Science department at the University of Central Florida as a Visiting Assistant Professor.

Eventually, I joined the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department here at Florida Tech as an Assistant Professor in January of 2003. Due to the significant impact of my efforts to engage undergraduate students into Machine Learning research here at Florida Tech, I was awarded the 2006-2007 Kerry Bruce Clark Award for Excellence in Teaching in April of 2007, while in April 2008 I was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. Finally, I have been the Director of the AMALTHEA REU Program since March 2007.