About

I'm a Reader in Computer Science at the University of Essex and Faculty Dean (Postgraduate) for Science and Health. My research is on machine learning and evolutionary computation for finance. Separately, I lead industry and consultancy projects that apply machine learning to business and public-sector problems, such as maritime safety and healthcare.

I started in economics in Athens, then came to Essex for an MSc and an EPSRC-funded PhD. My doctorate used genetic programming and self-organising maps for financial forecasting and agent-based market models, and that mix of economics and computation still runs through my work.

After eight years as a lecturer at the University of Kent, I returned to Essex in 2020. Since then my group has run around 30 funded projects with industry and public bodies, and I have supervised eighteen PhD students.

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• 2024 – present

  Faculty Dean (Postgraduate), Faculty of Science and Health

  University of Essex

• 2023 – present

  Reader, School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering

  University of Essex

• 2021 – 2023

  Senior Lecturer

  University of Essex

• 2020 – 2021

  Lecturer

  University of Essex

• 2012 – 2020

  Lecturer, School of Computing

  University of Kent

• 2013 – 2017

  Visiting Fellow

  University of Essex

• 2010 – 2012

  Research Assistant on British Telecom (BT) projects (fibre-network demand forecasting; backhaul network optimisation)

  University of Essex

At Essex I have served as Director of the Centre for Computational Finance and Economic Agents (CCFEA), Deputy Director of Education, Deputy Director of Graduate Studies and Director of Examinations (PGT). At Kent I was Director of Graduate Studies (Taught), Programme Director for the MSc in Advanced Computer Science and Acting Director of Graduate Studies (Research).

• 2013

  Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education

  University of Kent

• 2011

  PhD in Computer Science (EPSRC funded), supervised by Prof Edward Tsang and Prof Shu-Heng Chen

  University of Essex

• 2006

  MSc in Computer Studies, with distinction and the best dissertation prize

  University of Essex

• 2005

  BSc in Economic Sciences

  National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

I have taught quantitative methods in finance and trading, advanced programming, web development, data mining and computational intelligence in business, economics and finance. My Kent students nominated me for a Kent Union Teaching Award in 2012–13.

Greek (native), English (fluent), Mandarin Chinese (intermediate), French (good).

I contribute to the computational finance and evolutionary computation communities through IEEE leadership, conference organisation, grant review and examining.

• Senior Fellow of Advance HE, formerly the Higher Education Academy (2025)
• Best Partnership: Public Sector, University of Essex Innovation Awards (2024), for work with ESNEFT
• Nominated for PhD Supervisor of the Year, University of Essex (2022–2024)
• Nominated for a Kent Union Teaching Award (2012–13)
• Best Paper nomination, EuroGP (2014)
• Computer Studies Prize, University of Essex (2006)

• Chair, IEEE Computational Finance and Economics Technical Committee (2020–2021)
• Chair, Portfolio Optimisation Task Force, IEEE CFE Technical Committee (2018–2019)
• Member, UKRI Talent Peer Review College (2023 to present)
• Panel member, Engineering, Physical and Space Sciences, Newton Fund Programme, British Council (2015–2016, 2018–2020)

• General Chair, IEEE CIFEr (2022)
• Symposium Co-Chair, IEEE CIFEr, Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (2020)
• Chair, Special Session on Evolutionary Algorithms in Finance and Economics, IEEE CEC (2019, 2021)
• Track Chair, EvoFin/EvoBAFIN at EvoStar (2015–2017)
• Programme committee member for GECCO, IEEE CEC and IEEE CIFEr

• Guest Editor, Special Issue on Computational Finance and Economics, Evolutionary Intelligence (2016)
• Guest Editor, Special Issue on Discrete Dynamics in Evolutionary Computation and Its Applications, Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society (2016)
• Editor of the EvoApplications proceedings, Springer LNCS (2015–2017)
• Reviewer for journals including IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Expert Systems with Applications, Information Sciences, Quantitative Finance and the Journal of Banking and Finance

• 2025 – 2028

  BSc Computer Science

  University of Kent

• 2024 – 2027

  MSc Risk Management

  University of Southampton

• 2023 – 2027

  UG Computer Science, AI and Business Information Systems (SCNU Joint Institute)

  University of Aberdeen

• 2023 – 2026

  MSc Data Science

  Goldsmiths, University of London

• 2020 – 2025

  BSc Data Science

  University of Westminster

I have also examined PhDs at King's College London, Stellenbosch University, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Essex and Kent.