Tech Talks Central

The close collaboration between the NCSR “Demokritos” and CERN is illustrated once more during our interview with Dr. Theodoros Geralis, Research Director at the Institute of Particle & Nuclear Physics of the historic institution in Athens, and also President of the 300-strong Hellenic Society for the Study of High-Energy Physics. Dr. Geralis gives us a first-hand account on their common activities, explaining the different kinds of NCSR participation in the famous CMS experiment which lead to the discovery of the Higgs particle, in 2012. He also describes the next steps towards a frame larger than the standard model, which will explain our world even better, solving perhaps the problem of dark matter. Finally, he points out the high level of the Greek researchers, demonstrated by the fact that they play a critical and quite disproportional to the size of their country, role at CERN. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

A senior researcher at the National Observatory of Athens, Dr. Demetra Founda focuses on the “hot” topics of climate change and global warming in the whole area of SE Europe and, most obviously, in Athens. She tells us about the importance of the more than 150 years old temperature records kept by NOA and alerts us about the significant change observed during the last decades. She warns us of the significant increase in air-temperature; approximately one degree Celsius per decade which amounts to at least three degrees, since the mid 70s! She characterizes this problem as very serious, asks for urgent measures from the State and warns that -based on models and assumptions- our region will certainly be much warmer and drier by the end of the century. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

Dr. Sophia Kremydi describes the history of her discipline, Numismatics, the study or collection of coins, paper currency, and medals. She tells us all about its origin and its evolution from the private to the public collections we admire today; and explains that the reason we collect ancient coins is not only, out of curiosity, but because they’re an important primary source of historical information that we can’t find from other sources. She also compares the ancient economies to the modern ones (simpler and more complex, at the same time) and tells us about her own research on ancient Macedonian coins; her two books to be published soon; as well as the creation of online databases on the subject, which will be shared and updated by researchers all over the world. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

An associate researcher and member of the 35year-strong Institute of Marine Biological Resources & Inland Waters at Hellenic Centre of Marine Research, Dr. Stamati Zogaris focuses on biodiversity conservation and protected area planning. He has extensive experience on monitoring ecosystems (fish / birds / wild life/ aquatic etc), so he underlines the urgent need for strategies, priorities and measures to be taken in order to protect our natural heritage. He tells us about the Natura 2000 network, which spreads to more than 400 sites all over Greece; describes the significant benefits for the locals; calls for conservation education (in fact, his institute educates teachers, as a first step) and urges the State to invest in the restoration of ecological infrastructure, as it will definitely bring sustainable growth, even in times of crises. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

Particle physicist and Research Director at NCSR “Demokritos”, Dr. George Fanourakis, talks about the scientific revolution that has improved our understanding of the Universe, during the last 15 years, as we try to decipher the mystery concerning dark matter and dark energy, and describes the important part the NCSR scientific team plays in the CAST experiment at CERN. He describes the special equipment they’ve developed to detect axions converted to x-rays, which are easier to study and talks about the new and upgraded detectors, like the MicroMegas. Finally, he gives a preview on the European Researchers’ Night 2015 program, where researchers and scientists from five research centers (at least in Attica) will show in a visitor-friendly way, what they are doing in their labs and how the results of their work apply to our daily life. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

Dr. Vangelis Karkaletsis, the seasoned Research Director at NCSR “Demokritos”, dives into the quite significant educational activities at the historic Greek Research Center. He focuses on the ever increasing synergies it holds with American and European universities in joint PhD programs, the classic annual summer school for Greek students that this year turns 50 (!), as well as the successful biannual international school for young researchers. He also talks about the strengthening of international research co-operation in NCSR; he reveals a lot about their ambitious plans for the future and, sure enough, he doesn’t forget to speak about the main cause for this round of interviews, the European Researchers’ Night, that will take place in late September 2015. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

Dr. Kontoyiannis is a physicist of the sea, a sea-going researcher who extracts valuable results based on the wealth of data obtained during his expeditions with the Hellenic Center of Marine Research. The main area of his vast experience has to do with sea currents, starting from the open seas (i.e. the Gulf Stream, which was the topic of his thesis) and reaching to a coastal ocean, like the Mediterranean, and more specifically the Aegean Sea. He talks about an interesting recent project he’s involved in - the measurements of Evoikos currents near his native Chalkis and the effort to examine its energy harvesting potential - and continues with the qualities (the “flame”, as he puts it) that young and aspiring students need to have, in order to become researchers and succeed in this demanding discipline. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

Dr. Spyros Raptis has a degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering and a doctoral degree in computational intelligence. He talks about his main field of research and expertise which is speech and signal processing, and explains why sentiment analysis is significant, when it comes to building better interaction and communication processes in machines. To strengthen his point he presents the new HUBIC Lab: a state-of-the-art lab for studying human behaviour, interaction and communication by capturing different modalities such as speech, motion, body stance, facial expression, gaze… in different settings and contexts. This will help in capturing, analyzing, studying, modeling but also generating embodied behaviours aiming at more affective, life-like and socially aware virtual characters and robots. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech talks Central.

Dr. Ioannis Costas holds a doctoral degree in Chemistry and specialises in Catalysis and Organic Synthesis. His research, a palladium complex for the Suzuki reaction, is commercially available. He explains how Catalysis is a widely used process in chemistry & engineering with over 80% of all industrial processes involving it. Used in energy, food, industrial products, pharmaceuticals and many more fields, life as we know it, would be impossible without catalysis. Dr. Costas talks about his fields of practice including green chemistry and transition metal homogenous catalysis. Unfortunately, time was limited and the interviewer could not go deeper into the science but had to wrap it up with a question on how he would motivate young students to follow Chemistry. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central

Demetris and his team (Dimitrios Dessylas, Rox Kulliye and Spyridon Michelakis) chose to combine tourism with philanthropy in their proposition for BattleHack. Their idea is that visitors may use the PayPal platform to donate an amount of money in exchange for hearing and viewing a story about historical monuments of world heritage in Athens. Receivers of the donations will notify the donor about the progress of their cause via social media and SMS. Demetris, a PhD researcher from Ioannina University, talked a lot about his important startup experience abroad and also Rox came in to praise the high level of the Greek human capital in the field. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.