Scientific Personnel
Thanasis Karmas
Space Data Systems
Graduate from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and holder of an M.Sc. in Geoinformatics from the interdisciplinary and interdepartmental Master’s Program of NTUA. He has several years of experience in the private and research sector in applications related to Big Data Analytics, Earth Observation, and Geoinformatics as well as in the design and development of Cloud based services, distributed databases, and WebGIS systems with very high requirements in uptime and availability. He has actively worked in the data management domain with tight security specifications in both the private sector and in projects funded by the European Union and has coordinated small and medium-sized technical teams of software and data engineers.
Dimitris Bliziotis
Earth Observation
Graduate from the School of Rural, Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and holder of an M.Sc. in Geoinformatics from the interdisciplinary and interdepartmental Master’s Program of NTUA. He has several years of experience in the private and research sector in applications related to Earth Observation, Geoinformatics, Data mining/machine learning, Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) and management of large-scale mapping projects for Defense, Security and Emergency applications. He has actively worked and managed more than 25 projects funded by the European Union (ESA, EC, COPERNICUS, EDA, FRONTEX, SATCEN), coordinated medium-sized technical teams (30 people), contributed to the definition of strategic business roadmaps in various private companies and has participated to the technical validation of 6 Earth Observation satellite missions.
Manolis Mylonakis
Space Systems
Electrical and Computer Engineer graduate from the University of Patras and holder of M. Sc. In Wireless Communications from the University of Southampton. He has worked for Airbus Defence & Space, UK (Portsmouth) and France (Toulouse) in RF/Telecom Engineering, Antenna Design, MW Instruments & Radars and Assembly Integration & Testing. Furthermore, he has worked as an AIT Engineer in ESA, ESTEC, NL for the Galileo GNSS satellites. He has participated in the following satellites missions and programs: MetOp-SG, Sentinel-1 C&D, OneWeb, Radar for Zephyr, WIVERN, EutelSat Quantum, Inmarsat 6 and in varied research activities including H2020 programs. He has coordinated small and medium-sized teams of engineers and technicians.
Dimitris Mylonas
Space Systems
Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and MSc in Space Systems Engineering from the University of Surrey. Long experience in the space sector, having worked for a decade for Airbus Defence & Space in France (Toulouse) and in UK (Stevenage), as a flight software engineer, validation responsible, GNC study Lead and software systems architect. Has participated in EO missions (Airbus AS250-based platforms), scientific and planetary exploration missions such as ExoMars Rover Vehicle, Sample Fetch Rover και Lagrange L5. Has acted as the central software validation responsible for the Solar Orbiter mission satellite, leading a multinational team of at least 15 engineers to the final software qualification and acceptance for flight by ESA. Has worked in various space technology R&D projects in the private sector in Greece and in ESA – ESTEC TEC-SWE department in the Netherlands.
Christos Papachristos
Economic Advisor/Expert
Dr. Papachristos holds a BEng in Aerospace Systems Engineering from the University of Southampton in the UK, an MSc in Satellite Communications Engineering from the University of Surrey in the UK, an MBA in Finance from Cardiff Business School in the UK and a PhD in Electrical Engineering (Microwave Communications) from the National Technical University of Athens. Dr. Papachristos has extensive corporate experience in Greece and the UAE in senior management positions in the Satellite Communications and Space sectors. Dr. Papachristos is the author of 13 publications in journals and conferences.
Anezina Solomonidou
Space Sciences & Space Exploration
Dr. Anezina Solomonidou is a planetary scientist specializing in planetary geology and investigating the potentially habitable worlds of our solar system. She has obtained her doctoral title on astronomy and astrophysics from the Paris Observatory in France. She has worked for many years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Caltech in Los Angeles, California, on the Cassini-Huygens and the Europa Clipper missions, as well as the European Space Agency (ESA) in Madrid for the preparation of ESA’s new space mission, JUICE. She has authored a plethora of articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and chapters in books and more than 10 White Papers to NASA and ESA. Dr. Solomonidou has proposed a series of planetary experiments and has contributed to the design of future missions. She is the President of the Division for Planetary Sciences (PS) for the European Geosciences Union (EGU) and serves as a review panelist for international boards and NASA panels, where she evaluates scientific proposals for planetary research.
Tryfon Farmakakis
Space Systems
Graduate from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and holder of an M.Sc. in Space Science from the International Space University, Strasbourg. He has several years of experience in the private and research sector in applications related to Space Systems, Semantic Web, Databases, Storage Systems, Distributed Systems, Operating Systems and Software Development. He also loves aviation and holds a PPL license.
Dimitrios Christopoulos
Satellite Communications and Integrated Applications
Dimitrios Christopoulos received the electrical and computer engineering diploma from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Athens, Greece, in 2010 and the Ph.D. diploma from the Interdisciplinary Center for Security and Trust, (SnT), University of Luxembourg, in 2014. Early 2016, he joined the Technical Labs of Newtec, in Belgium, later rebranded as STEngineering, iDirect. Throughout his career, Dr. Christopoulos has managed numerous ESA, European Commission and Nationally funded R&D programs for the design, development and productization of ground segment components for next generation satellite communications systems. He is co-inventor of 4 patents on signal processing for satcoms, author of more than 30 scientific articles and has served as an industrial standardization delegate in ETSI and 3GPP.