Core Team

Christos Arvanitidis - Project Coordinator

Research Director, head of the IMBBC Biodiversity laboratory. Involved in 65 research and education projects, coordinated 8. Research Funding ID: >7 M€. More than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles, including two monographs. Associate Editor in Frontiers in Marine Science, Biodiversity Data Journal and Handling Editor in Mediterranean Marine Science; Guest editor in Marine Ecology Progress Series and Journal of Sea Research; Member of the editorial board of Transitional Waters Bulletin; Reviewer in more than 45 international peer-reviewed journals. Member of: Pool of experts and biodiversity drafting team for the UN World Ocean Assessment; National expert on the GES Descriptor “Biodiversity” to the EU (MSFD Implementation phase); ICES Task Group 6 working on the seafloor integrity (EU MSDF); Board of MARS (European Network of Marine Research Institutes and Stations); Society for the Marine European Biodiversity Data (SMEBD); Editorial Board of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS); Scientific Advisory Council of the International Polychaete Association (IPA); Scientific Council of the Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d'Ecologie marine et continentale (IMBE). Coordinator of the LifeWatchGreece Research Infrastructure and national delegate to LifeWatch ERIC. Arvanitidis' research focuses on marine biodiversity, biodiversity informatics, functional diversity, and coastal ecosystems. He works on the comparisons of marine biodiversity information patterns deriving from various biological organization levels and scales of observation, trying to develop new approaches to explore their interrelationships.

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Eva Chatzinikolaou - Project Manager

Dr Eva Chatzinikolaou is a post doc researcher in the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). Her main research interests focus on marine biodiversity and more specifically on the intertidal and lagoon ecology. Her scientific field includes research on invertebrate population dynamics, gastropod growth, reproduction and larval development. She has worked on techniques for ageing of gastropods using statoliths. Furthermore, she has studied aspects of marine pollution and environmental protection and she has investigated the phenomenon of imposex due to TBT pollution on marine gastropods. She has published 15 scientific papers and participated in several international conferences. She has actively participated in four FP7 European projects, one ENPI CBC-MED project, two national projects and one regional project. She has wide experience on the implementation and management of European and national research projects. She was granted twice (2012, 2013) with an ASSEMBLE research funding and is currently participating in the project AcidOc which is funded under the Latsis foundation. In LifewatchGreece she is employed as the Executive Project Manager.

Evangelos Pafilis - Technical Manager

Evangelos Pafilis is a Research Fellow at the Hellenic Center for Marine Research in Crete, Greece. He is working on LifeWatch, an EU FP7 project, aiming at supporting biodiversity and genomics research excellence in Greece (at a first stage) and in the Eastern Mediterranean (at a second) Coming from a background in data integration and literature mining in the biomedical domain, he is exploring how such techniques could also serve other biological research fields. The overall aim is to support answering questions that span the whole spectrum of biological organization: from genes all the way up to ecosystems. His present focus is in the recognition of organism names and environment descriptors mentioned in text. Bioinformatics analyses, information visualization, network-based analysis and centralized resources such as GenBank and the Encyclopedia of Life are additional means to this end.

Anastasis Oulas - Technical Manager

Dr Anastasis Oulas is a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). His main research interests are in the development and application of bioinformatics tools for the analysis of bacterial diversity using genomic and metagenomic data. Specifically, he is performing analysis on 454 as well as Illumina sequencing data from 16S ribosomal genes as well as full shotgun sequencing data to investigate biodiversity in marine microbial ecosystems. He is involved in numerous EU FP7 projects such as: COST Action ES1103: Microbial ecology & the earth system: collaborating for insight and success with the new generation of sequencing tools. MicroB3 - Microbial Biotechnology Biodiversity and Bioinformatics, SeaBioTech - From sea-bed to test-bed: harvesting the potential of marine microbes for industrial biotechnology. He is also actively involved in meetings and conferences organized by the EMBRC - European Marine Biological Resource Centre. He has 12 published research articles in high caliber peer-reviewed international journals. His publications have received 117 citations and h-index:4. In Lifewatch Greece she is employed as Bioinformatician with expertise in genetics and sequencing data analysis .

Nicolas Bailly - Data Manager

Biodiversity informatics scientist and ichthyologist in the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). He was previously in the Laboratory of Ichthyology and the Department of Systematics and Evolution at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN, Paris, France; 1992-2005). He participated in the following projects under the EC-FP5 and FP6, all related to biodiversity informatics: ERMS, ENHSIN, Fauna Europaea, BioCase, and ENBI. He started to collaborate with FishBase in 1996, mainly on the taxonomic and species distribution modules. He participated in the creation of the FishBase Consortium in 2000 of which he was the head for one year. He participated in many initiatives on biodiversity information systems at the international and French national levels. He organized the 3rd GBIF Governing Board meeting and the launch of the first CD of Catalogue of Life, both in Paris in 2001. Employed at WorldFish (2005-2014), he was the FishBase programme manager as the Officer in Charge of the Philippines Office (2005-2010), and then seconded to the FishBase Information and Research Group (FIN), a Philippine NGO, as the Scientific Director (still acting at that position). He is Scientific Adviser for SeaLifeBase. Under WorldFish and FIN, he participated to the EC-FP7 projects D4Science I and II, BioFresh, iMarine (acting as the Deputy Chair of the Board), and EU-BON, besides other smaller projects from various donors. He is member of the Global Team of the Catalogue of Life since 2008, Taxonomic Group Chair since 2009, and the vice-Chair of the Global Team since 2011. Previous member of the editorial committee of Cybium, he is member of the editorial committee of Acta Ichtyologica and Piscatoria since September 2014.

Carlo Allocca - Web Semantic Researcher

Dr. Carlo Allocca is a post doc researcher at the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). As Semantic Web researcher he deals with research and development in ontology modeling, knowledge representation and reasoning applied for Semantic Web and more recently with Linked Open Data, especially methods and tools for building intelligent applications based on formalised  knowledge. In particular, as part of several projects, he has worked on subjects such as Ontology and Data Integration, Data Harmonization, Ontology Building, Ontology Evaluation, Ontology Relationships. Moreover, he had the opportunity to take on responsibilities by which he acquired and developed competences in modeling and building efficient back-end knowledge based services that support the addition of semantic structure on the top of "œnon-semantic" pieces of content. He has published 16 scientific papers and participated in several international conferences. He has actively participated in a number of European projects. Currently, he is working on the running LifeWatch project where his main responsibility is to research and develop an open information system for the management of the datasets in the context of Marine Scientist's research activities. To this end, he proposed a semantic approach to the Mediterranean Ocean Biographic Information System: SemMedObis

Emmanouela Panteri - Web Developer

Emmanouela is a Web Developer at the Hellenic Center for Marine Research (HCMR). She has a BSc degree in Computer Science, specialized in Database Development, Data Integration and Web Based Applications. Currently involved in the development and implementation of citizen science projects, that aims at engaging citizen scientists in a coastal marine biodiversity observation network. Her focus is on the data integration between web based platforms and mobile/tablet applications. Within Lifewatch she is now developing/supporting the Lifewatch Greece website.

Nikos Pattakos - System Administrator

Mr Nikolas Pattakos is in system operations in the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). His undergraduate studies were on applied mathematics, specifically numerical methods and fluid/solid mechanics. His postgraduate studies were on high performance computing in Edinburgh and Chania. There he developed skills in computer architecture and parallel programming models suitable for clusters of multicore computers and/or accelerators such as GPUs. He has worked with the Institute of Applied Mathematics of FORTH as an undergraduate where he did fluid simulations in arteries and around helicopters. He has also worked for HCMR accelerating scientific codes for multicore computers. He used to be a 3D graphics driver writer for Imagination Technologies prior to joining HCMR. In LifewatchGreece he is employed as the system administrator while helping in any technical way he can.

Jacques Lagnel - Genetic data analysis

Jacques Lagnel is bioinformatician in the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). His main research interests focus on analysis of biodiversity based on genetic markers: sequence diversity and mining and analysis of polymorphic markers (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism and microsatellites). His interests include also next generation sequencing data analysis and more specifically analysis of transcriptomics data (RNA-Seq). His is in charge of the bionformatic platform of IMBBC. He has published 32 papers and participated in several international conferences. In Lifewatch Greece he is involved in analysis of genetic marine data as a member of the genetic group.

Sarah Faulwetter - Data manager

Dr Sarah Faulwetter is a post doc researcher at the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR).Her main research activities lie in the fields of biodiversity informatics and cybertaxonomy. She develops online tools, databases and new methods to facilitate biodiversity and ecosystem research. She's a taxonomic expert for marine bristle worms (polychaetes) in the Mediterranean and participates regularly in field trips to collect samples, either from the shore or by SCUBA diving. Within Lifewatch she is coordinating the data management activities and the development of standards for publishing three-dimensional morphological data created through micro-computed tomography. 

Niki Keklikoglou - Data Manager

Niki Keklikoglou is a technician in the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). She took her Master Degree at the University of Crete. Her main research interests are related with marine biodiversity (especially benthic organisms), ecology, Micro-Computed tomography (micro-CT) and hard bottom sampling techniques. She has published 3 scientific papers and participated in international conferences and training courses. In LifewatchGreece she will create virtual galleries using the micro-CT.

Manolis Mandalakis - Data Manager

Dr. Manolis Mandalakis is currently a research scientist at the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). He is an expert in environmental analytical chemistry, with long experience in the analysis of various organic compounds using chromatographic methods hyphenated with mass spectrometric detectors. His research interests include the qualitative/quantitative analysis of organic compounds (e.g. persistent organic pollutants, algal pigments, aminoacids, biomarkers, etc) in environmental samples, the compound specific isotope analysis (CSIA) for biodegradation monitoring or source apportionment and, more recently, the proteomic/metabolomic analysis of bacterial strains. He has worked as researcher in several universities and institutes, including the University of Crete, Stockholm University, Swedish Museum of Natural History, while in 2009 he was granted a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship to carry out his research at The Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, one of the world leading institutes in proteomics. He has participated in 12 European and National projects (Principal investigator in 2 of them). His research results have been presented in 36 articles (first author in 21) in peer-reviewed journals with high impact in the field of environmental sciences, such as Environmental Science and Technology, Environmental Health Perspectives (cumulative ISI 2012 impact factor: 130.0). He has collectively received 934 citations (880 without self-citations) and his current h-index is 18.

Dimitra Mavraki - Data Manager

Dimitra Mavraki is an Environmental Scientist with post graduated studies on Hydrology and Environmental Management of Water Resources. She has five years of experience in environmental impact assessments (EIA) for a wide range of projects (industrial sector, commercial sector, renewable energy plants), in sustainable development & regional management plans and in protection and restoration projects for the environment. She worked for four years at the European Institutions as an assistant of a Member of the European Parliament; specialized in energy and environmental issues (energy efficiency, renewable energy, security of energy supply, sustainable industry solutions etc). The period 2011-2012, Dimitra worked as policy adviser to the Greek Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, specialized in renewable energy and energy efficiency policy issues, as well as the promotion of the energy project Helios, which foresees the export of electricity generated from solar energy in the Hellenic Republic to one or more Member States of the European Union or third countries. She works on the Lifewatch Project at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, since November 2013. In LifewatchGreece RI she is employed as Data Manager, specialized on marine data.

Matina Nikolopoulou - WebGis technician - Data manager

Stamatina Nikolopoulou is a physicist with post graduated studies on Ecology and Evolution-Biological Sciences at the university of Amsterdam and is specialized on GIS. Upon graduation she earned a position as a technician for a gas sensors project at the Foundation of Research and Technology, Hellas. The postgraduate program expanded her knowledge and experience to a more theoretical biological basis regarding environmental issues such as applied ecology, protection and conservation of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. She has worked at the Hellenic ornithological society and participated in many field trips for monitoring and data collection. At the university of Crete - Biological Sciences at the National History Museum of Crete she got involved in projects concerning wildlife management and conservation for three years. She also participated in Mediseh, a project carried on by HCMR by mapping areas of sensitive habitats in the Mediterranean. On Lifewatch project she develops web gis applications for data visualization and she is involved in the data management activities.

Christina Pavloudi - Data Manager

Christina Pavloudi is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture (IMBBC) of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). Her PhD research is implemented through MARES Joint Doctoral Programme on Marine Ecosystem Health & Conservation and involves collaboration between the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, the University of Bremen and the University of Ghent. Her main research focuses on microbial ecology and more specifically on the biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen and sulfur. Her scientific interests include microbial functional ecology, molecular biology and marine biology. She has published three scientific papers and participated in international conferences and workshops. She has actively participated in several research projects, including FP7 European projects, EU COST Actions (ES1003 and ES1103) and ASSEMBLE projects. In LifewatchGreece she is employed a Data Manager, focusing on Microbial Diversity Data sets.

Katerina Vasileiadou - Data Manager

Katerina Vasileiadou is PhD Student in the University of Patras and the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research. Her thesis is focused on the biodiversity of lagoonal ecosystems: comparison of the genetic distribution pattern and the community distribution pattern. Her main research topics are on marine biodiversity, molecular ecology, the genetic diversity of benthic organisms. She has published 9 scientific papers and participated in several scientific conferences. She has participated actively in two FP6 European projects, two FP7 European projects, one ESPA project, one Rubenstein Fellow and granted two times with ASSEMBLE research funding.

Theodore Patkos - Statistical parallel computing

Dr. Theodore Patkos is a post-doc researcher in the Information Systems Laboratory (ISL) at the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH). He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Crete since 2010 studying formal methods for commonsense reasoning in dynamic environments. His research activities revolve around the fields of knowledge representation and non-monotonic reasoning, contextual and commonsense reasoning, multi-agent and cognitive systems, argumentation and formal knowledge representation models for the Semantic Web. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratoire Images, Signaux et Systèmes Intelligents (LiSSi) in Paris, France. He has been involved in national and international projects, including Lifewatch (ongoing), Web Of Objects (ongoing), S-Cube (ended 2013) and others. He has co-authored more than 20 scientific papers in peer-reviewed conferences and journals, including IJCAI and LPAR. He has served on the Program Committee of numerous international conferences, journals and workshops. He currently serves as Program Chair of the 12th Commonsense Symposium and the 8th International Rule Challenge. In Lifewatch Greece he is employed as a researcher for the design and implementation of a statistical analysis environment for parallel computing.

Nikos Minadakis - Development engineer

Nikos Minadakis is a research and development engineer in the Information Systems Laboratory (ISL) at the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH). He graduated from the department of Computers Engineering and Informatics, University of Patras, and hold a MSc in Computer Science and Technology where he was mainly occupied with Internet Technologies and Databases. He has been involved in a number of projects working on Automation of Semantic Warehouses Construction Process, Biodiversity Data Modelling, Data Integration and Reasoning.

Varsos Constantinos - Algorithm profiling

Varsos Constantinos is a research collaborator in the Institute of Computer Science, Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH).His background and research interests revolve around numerical analysis, statistical analysis and computational mathematics. He studied Applied Mathematics (BSc) and Theoretical Mathematics (MSc) at University of Crete. Alongside his studies he worked in the Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics (IACM) of FORTH, where he participated in many projects and practiced his skills at computer programming, simulation techniques and statistical analysis.His contribution on LifeWatch, an EU FP7 project, aims at algorithm's profiling - optimization and statistical analysis. Also coming from a mathematical background he may offer an insight in problems and aspects of the project that use, consider and implement advanced mathematical formulas and theories.

Alexandros Gougousis - I.T Engineer

Alexandros is an I.T engineer at the Hellenic Center for Marine Research (HCMR), specialized in Web Appliication Development and System Administration. He holds an Electrical and Computer Engineering Diploma (2003), a Master Degree on Electronics and Computer Engineering (2006) and a Master Degree in Production and Engineering Management (2013). All his diploma or master thesis are in the I.T sector. In 2006 he was awarded the "Ericsson Award of Excellence in Telecommunications" for his master thesis related to scheduling in wireless packet networks. He has a wide working experience in the development, modification and configuration of Web Applications and Platforms and his main interest is on software engineering and web application development using PHP and Java.

Vasilis Gerovasileiou - Data Manager

Dr Vasilis Gerovasileiou is a post doc researcher in the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research. He has a BSc in Marine Sciences and a MSc in Coastal Zone Management from the University of the Aegean (Greece). He has been granted with 6 awards and scholarships for graduate and postgraduate studies (State Scholarships Foundation, Alexander Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, Heracleitus II). The scope of his PhD (School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) was the study of the biodiversity and community structure of Mediterranean marine caves. His research interests are related to the taxonomy, ecology, and biogeography of sessile invertebrates with special emphasis on sponges, anthozoans and their associated macrofauna. He has 13 publications in peer reviewed journals and scientific monographs and 46 contributions in scientific conferences. He is reviewer for 10 international peer review journals and was member of the scientific committee for two scientific conferences. He has participated as a member of the research team in 16 national and European funded research projects and oceanographic expeditions in collaboration with the University of the Aegean, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, the National Marine Park of Zakynthos and private consulting companies, which focused on marine biodiversity, fisheries, artificial reefs, Marine Protected Areas and diving tourism. In LifewatchGreece he is employed as Data Manager on marine data.

Irene Filiopoulou Mobile Applications

Irene is a mobile developer at the Hellenic Center for Marine Research (HCMR). She received her BSc and MSc degree in the fields of Information Systems and E-commerce Technologies in Computer Science Department from the University of Crete. She has worked in the Multimedia Laboratory at the University Of Crete as a mobile developer and in the Transformation Service Laboratory, also at University of Crete, where she has been involved in several projects. She has taught informatics lessons at Technological Educational Institute of Crete as an external laboratory partner (2009-2014).

Dr. Lucia Fanini Data Manager

Dr. Lucia Fanini holds a PhD in Ethology and Animal Ecology (University of Florence). She is working on sandy beaches, and on sandy beach fauna behavioural adaptation to changes, also devoting time to outreach and inter-disciplinary activities (among them study of gender approach to social-ecological systems, evaluation of outreach activities, behavioural studies of invasive species). She participated to several Euro-Mediterranean projects, encompassing 5, 6 and 7 EU Fps, and also to a range of bilateral cooperation projects with Uruguay, Morocco, Poland, Egypt, France, Italy and Australia. She is currently appointed Associated Researcher at the Australian Museum Research Institute and Associated Researcher at the Universidad de la Republica de Uruguay. She published more than 25 papers in peer-reviewed journals, with h-index 8. She is Managing Editor for the international journal Ethology Ecology and Evolution (Taylor and Francis publisher).

Nikitas Michalakis Web Developer

My name is Nikitas Michalakis and I have been working as a freelancer for the last 8 years. I am strong believer of having a positive attitude and I enjoy experimenting with new ideas and fresh designs. I love PHP, MySQL, Apache, Linux, working with new technologies, coding, football and my brand new Fender Telecaster. Many argue that degrees nowadays are not the most important asset, however it might be worth mentioning that I have a University degree on Applied Informatics (University of Macedonia | Greece). I specialize in Drupal and I am a custom module developer and themer (front-end or back-end developer). For theming needs I use the extremely popular 1140.gs CSS framework or Twitter’s Bootstrap for web design in order to achieve unique and aesthetically pleasing websites. I am an official member of the Drupal Association Club (https://drupal.org/user/410290).

Yannis Marketakis R&D Engineer

Yannis Marketakis (M) is an R&D Engineer in the Information Systems Laboratory at FORTH-ICS. His main research interests include: information systems, digital preservation, knowledge representation using semantic web technologies, linked data, data integration using semantic web technologies and conceptual modeling. He had an active role in several EU projects, including the FP7 projects iMarine and SCIDIP-ES and he has been participated in more than 20 scientific publications.