People

Dr Grillakis is currently a post-doctoral researcher, specializing in drought and hydrology research and modeling using land surface models, climate change impacts assessment while recently his research focused on the links between wildfires and climate. He has participated in 14, mostly international (FP6-FP7-H2020, ESA) research projects in the thematic areas of climate change impacts on various fields, land surface modeling, remote sensing, extreme events (droughts-floods), hydrologic modeling, water resources management, wildfires. He has co-authored 45 scientific publications, and more than 50 conferences. He has served as Lead Author in Mediterranean Experts on Climate and environmental Change (MedECC) first assessment report. He has served as an expert evaluator in University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Research Growth Initiative and expert reviewer in IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. Since 2018, he has lectured in Technical University of Crete and Technological Educational Institute of Crete (in Heraklion) various earth and environment related courses.

Konstantinos Seiradakis holds a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Technical University of Crete since 2005. Upon his graduation, he has been working as research engineer in several research programs including:  5DARE, Helix, Cascade, ReCare, Impact2C, SimFlood and Hydrate.  
Konstantinos has extended experience in the analysis, design, configuration and implementation of Geographic Information System. Also, as part of his research work Konstantinos has extended the capabilities of those systems by programming and integrating custom modules, to satisfy project requirements that would not otherwise be covered by out of the box GIS platform capabilities. 
To support his research work Kostas is working on streamlining the integration of a reference research environment to support modern DevOps capabilities, Continuous Development / Continuous Integration, covering all necessary security requirements and of course being able to support the resilient and efficient processing of vast amounts of geographic and scientific data supporting all modern big data architectures. The reference environment is based on the integration of several platforms and technologies such as Microsoft Windows, RedHat/Centos Linux, Virtualization, OpenMPI/IntelMPI and multiple custom modules and processes that have been developed during Kostas applied research efforts. 
 

Irini is a Postdoctoral researcher working on the interaction between wildfires and climate as well as the impact of climate change on wildfires. Her work is part of the AXA project (ΑΧΑ chair for wildfires), which focuses on high-altitude fires. She is a physicist with a specialization in atmospheric and climate physics and holds a PhD in statistical modelling of air pollution. She has worked in Switzerland and the Netherlands in universities as well as reinsurance companies before joining TUC. Her experience includes research in atmospheric models for air pollution and statistical models characterizing air pollutants concentrations in relation to meteorology. Finally, in the insurance world she has studied the risk of high impact natural catastrophe phenomena, such as hurricanes and windstorms.
Email: eboleti@tuc.gr
 

Iulian-Alin Rosu is an Erasmus+ Trainee Romanian PhD student, specializing in fractal analysis, chaos theory and atmospheric physics. His current research involves the analysis and modelling of wildfires and wildfire scars using fractal and spectral theory, and the development of novel wildfire modelling, risk-assessment and data processing techniques. He has participated in 1 national research project and in a research internship in Turin, Italy, on the subject of atmospheric modelling. He has co-authored 10 scientific publications and has participated in 10 conferences, 6 of which were international.

Eleni Dovrou is a postdoctoral researcher specializing in Atmospheric Chemistry and Health Effects. She graduated from the Technical University of Crete with a degree in Environmental Engineering and completed her PhD in Engineering Sciences at Harvard University. Her PhD thesis focused on molecular level reactions occurring within cloud droplets, and on analytical methods of identification and quantification of sulfur-family species. She has worked as a researcher in Germany and Greece, investigating the health effects of atmospheric pollutants and the indoor air quality. Her current research includes the modeling of air quality considering future conditions, and the effect of extreme events.

Anastasios Rovithakis is an environmental engineer focusing on global warming and its effects on wild fire danger.

Research interests include:

 •    Improving thermal insulation of buildings via practical installations.
•    Modeling the indoor air quality of buildings in different types of environments.
•    Modeling and optimizing energy efficient buildings
•    Modeling and impact assessment of wild fires due to global warming

Dimitra Tarasi is a geologist with a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering. She is currently a PhD student investigating how the present-day atmosphere is influenced by fire emissions from boreal forests and peatlands and exploring how the future of the climate system will be impacted by the changing wildfire regimes at high northern latitudes. Her research, as part of the AXA research program (AXA Chair in Wildfires and Climate), focuses on developing a peatland and thawing permafrost burning modelling capability for the current Earth System Models.

Rafaila is an environmental engineer, currently focusing on the wildfire impacts on atmospheric composition and climate.  Specifically, during her PhD, she will study the effect of wildfire emissions on a global scale from the pre-industrial period to the present day and the future, using earth system models. Her research is funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I).

Manolis Petrakis is a physicist with expertise in computational physics, holding a master's degree in geostatistics. His dissertation focuses on developing computationally efficient non-stationary kernels for Gaussian processes using techniques from statistical physics. These kernels have potential applications in extreme event modeling. Previously, Manolis has worked on fracture models to study the distribution of earthquake interevent times and on anisotropy estimation in Gaussian random fields for automatic interpolation of environmental datasets. Currently, he is a member of the Atmospheric Environment and Climate Change laboratory, where his research investigates the impacts of wildfire emissions on atmospheric composition and on the assessment of their role in present-day climate. His research is funded by the Hellenic Foundation of Research & Innovation.

Chrysoula Vamvakaki is a physicist with a master's degree in Meteorology, Physical Oceanography and Climate from Utrecht University. She has worked in the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, where she gained experience in physico-chemical and meteorological data processing and analysis, in hydrology, and in the use of mathematical simulations in the investigation of the environmental state of the coastal zone that incorporates a river system. Currently, she is a member of the Atmospheric Environment and Climate Change laboratory, where she will focus on simulations of suspended particles of the existing Earth system models.

Konstantina is an environmental engineer with a degree from the Technical University of Crete. As an undergraduate student she studied the relationship between burned area from wildfires and the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) index, on a global scale using eighteen years of satellite data. Currently she is studying aerosol emissions from wildfires and their concentration in the atmosphere. Her study is based on simulations of an Earth System Model to evaluate current and future air pollution conditions, based on the prevailing emission scenarios.

Dr. Matthew Kasoar is a Research Associate in Earth Systems Modelling - Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society

Based at the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society, my research involves using state-of-the-art computer models to help researchers across the Centre understand the impacts of wildfire on the atmosphere and air quality, and predict how fire regimes may evolve under a changing climate.

Haleema Mishal is a Ph.D. student undertaking research in Economics. Her research focuses on quantifying and monetising damages from wildfires using environmental valuation methods in the European Mediterranean. Her research also aims to investigate the impacts of wildfires on human well-being