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Dr. Athanasios Loukas

Dr. Athanasios Loukas is, currently, Associate Professor of Engineering Hydrology – Management and Development of Water Resources, Director of Master Program “Water Resources” and Head of Transportation and Hydraulic Engineering Department of the School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2018-today). He was Professor, Head of the Department of Civil Engineering (2008-2012) and Dean of Engineering School, University of Thessaly (2015-2018).

He was Director of the Laboratory of Hydrology and Aquatic Systems Analysis and Director of the common Greek-French Master Program “Management of Hydrometeorological Hazards-HYDROHASARDS” co-organized with the Joseph Fourier University-Grenoble I (2010-2018).  He is Visiting Scientist/Researcher (Professor 1st class) at the Joseph Fourier University-Grenoble I, France and Visiting Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado State University, U.S.A., position for which he was awarded a Fulbright Research Scholarship for the academic year 2013-2014.

He has co-ordinated and participated in national, European research projects as well as a significant number of hydrological and hydraulic studies and water resources management projects. He is member of scientific and professional associations. He is, currently, Editor-in-Chief of European Water, Section Editor-in-Chief “Water Resources Management Policy and Governance” of Water and Editorial Board Member of Water Resources Management and Scientific Review Engineering and Environmental Sciences. He participates and participated as Guest Editor of scientific journals Special Issues.  He is reviewer of national and European research proposals as well as evaluator and responsible of research projects certification

Dr. Theofanis Gemtos

Dr. Gemtos is Emeritus Professor of the University of Thessaly. He is a graduate of the Department of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and holds PhD in Farm Mechanization from the University of Reading UK.

He is member at Geotechnical Chamber of Greece, the Hellenic Society of Agricultural Engineers, the European Society of Agricultural Engineers, the American  Society of Agricultural Engineers, the  Canadian Society of Agricultural Engineers, and the Greek and European Conservation Agriculture societies.

His teaching experience focuses on farm mechanization, energy in Agriculture and precision agriculture.

He has participated in more than 27 researches, has supervised 8 PhD theses, has published more than 60 papers in peer reviewed journals and 200 papers in national and international conferences. He has additionally organized 2 international and several national conferences.

Dr. Charalambos Kasimis

Charalambos Kasimis is a Professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development of the Agricultural University of Athens. In March 2015, he was appointed as Secretary General of Agricultural Policy and Management of European Funds of the Ministry of Rural Development and Food, in charge of CAP, Rural Development and Fisheries Development Programmes of Greece as well as International Relations. He completed his term in office in July 2019.

He has served as the Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development (2013-2014) and as the Director of the Postgraduate Studies MSc. Programme “Integrated Rural Development and Management of Rural Space” (2010-2014). Between September 2014 and March 2015, he was appointed as Deputy Rector of the Agricultural University of Athens. In the period 1986-2003 he served as a member of staff at the Department of Economics of the University of Patras and between 1995 and 2000 as the Director of the Institute of Urban and Rural Sociology at the National Centre for Social Research. For a number of years, he served as a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society for Rural Sociology and between 2013 and 2015 as President.

His academic interests focus on issues of rural transformation and development in Greece, the Balkans and the Mediterranean region and more particularly on family farming, employment and rural community change. Migration and, more precisely, the implications of international migration on rural regions have become one of his main research topics in the past years. In the crisis years he dealt with the study of the implications of the economic crisis upon the rural areas and the ‘return to the land’ movement in Greece.

Since 2016 Charalampos Kasimis is Vice President and member of the Governing Board of the International Center for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM).

Between 2018 -2019 he served as Executive Board member of the Organisation “Enterprise Greece”.

Dr. Nikolaos Katsoulas

Dr Nikolaos Katsoulas is Professor at the University of Thessaly (BSc-MSc in Agronomy- 1997, Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering-2002), Director of the Lab of Agricultural Constructions and Environmental Control and of the Institute of Rural Development of the IASON University Center for Innovation Research and Development, of the University of Thessaly.

He has 18 years Academic, Research and Teaching experience. He is specialized in microclimate control in agricultural buildings with emphasis in greenhouses. His research interests include technologies, automations, design, modeling and control in greenhouses, irrigation scheduling, hydroponic and aquaponic systems, energy management, renewable energy sources, microalgae production and other. He has long-term stays for research cooperation and teaching in several organizations around the world (e.g. UPCT, Spain; INRAE, Avignon, France; KUL, Belgium; SNU, Korea; UA, Tucson, USA; WUR, Wageningen, The Netherlands; HGU, Geisenheim, Germany).

He has participated in more than 50 EU and National (Greek) funded research projects and has published more than 200 publications (more than 75 in Peer-Review journals). During March 2021 he joined, as Editor, the Editorial Board of Biosystems Engineering Elsevier Journal.

Dr. Nikolaos Danalatos

Professor of Agronomy and Crop Ecology. Director of the Laboratory of Agronomy, Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Agricultural Environment, University of Thessaly (UTH)  (2006-Today). Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences UTH (2019-2022). Vice Rector of UTH (2013-2014) and unanimously elected Chairman of the Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Rural environment UTH for two terms 2014-2016 and 2016-2018.

He graduated from the Agricultural University of Athens (1982), received MSc in Soil Science and Water Management (1983-1986) and PhD in Quantitative Assessment of Land Use Systems (1987-1993) at Wageningen University. He is author of over 190 scientific papers in international journals (50), international book chapters (20), international conferences (106), other conferences and scientific papers.

He holds a Greek and international patent for solid biofuel production. He is evaluator of EU research programs, while his work is cited in more than 1600 international papers.

Dr. George Vlontzos

George Vlontzos is an Associate Professor, Director of the Laboratory of Agricultural Economics and Consumer Behavior. His research interests focus on, among others, economic and environmental efficiency assessment, and on consumer behavior characteristics for agricultural inputs and foodstuff. For this, various models are being implemented like Data Envelopment Analysis, Stochastic Frontier, Artificial Neural Networks, the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the Health Belief Model, etc. He has published several papers in journals under double blind peer review evaluation and participated in international congresses and seminars. Finally, he has participated, in competitive projects co-financed by the EU, national funding as well as private funding projects. Dr. George Vlontzos teaches agricultural economics and consumer behavior at the University of Thessaly, Greece. He was a visiting professor at the Center of Applied Optimization, University of Florida, USA from 1-2-2016 until 31-7-2016.

Dr. Demetrios Kouretas

Dr. Kouretas has a BSc in Pharmacy from University of Patras (Greece) 1985, PhD in Biochemistry from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki 1989 (Greece) and Post-doc at Harvard Medical School from 1990-1992. Dr. Kouretas has been staff member in the University of Thessaly since 1996 and from 2007 is Professor of ‘Animal Physiology – Toxicology’ at the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology of the University of Thessaly (Greece).  He has co-authored 220 articles in peer-reviewed journals and about 100 invited lectures in national and international conferences. According to Google scholar Dr. Kouretas’ publications have been cited 10000 times and their ‘h-index’ is 55. In 2017 has been elected member of the European Commission Committee (Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging risks, SCHEER) and the same year (2017) President of the Hellenic Society of Toxicology and Director of the National Master Program in Toxicology.

He has founded the spin-off company FoodOxys aimed at developing bio functional nutrition. He is Associate Editor in the ‘Food & Chemical Toxicology’ (from 2015), ‘Toxicology Reports’ (from 2017) journals of Elsevier and Academic Editor in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity (from 2017) and Antioxidants (from 2018).

Dr. Charalambos Billinis

Dr. Billinis was qualified as a Veterinarian from the School of Veterinary Medicine of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece in 1993. In 1998 he was awarded a PhD thesis in “Microbiology & Infectious Diseases” at the same University. European Veterinary Specialisation in Zoological Medicine – Wildlife Population Health (ECZM).

He is Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Microbiology and Parasitology of the Faculty of Veterinary Science, Dean of the Department of Public and One Health and Vice Rector of Finance, Planning and Development of the University of Thessaly.

Grant holder in 21 research projects and member of the coordinating team of the EU funded project “WildTech” (€ 6,000,000) for the development of molecular and serological tests for the detection of pathogens that are transmitted from wildlife to domestic animals and humans.

He has published 9 chapters, 140 articles in international journals and 151 abstracts in conference proceedings. Member of the European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIHs) in the field of Digital Health entitled “Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Industry Transformation through Artificial Intelligence Digital Services (Health-Hub)”.

Dr. Dimitrios Vlachos

Professor Vlachos is the Director of the Laboratory of Statistics and Quantitative Analysis Methods, Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LASCM) of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), Greece.

He conducts research and consulting in the fields of supply chain management, logistics, applied operational research, combined transport systems management, business restructuring and strategy development. He has participated in more than 60 research projects (in 15 of them as a principal investigator) in the field of Supply Chain Management, and he has co-authored the respective technical reports.

He has published more than 200 papers in scientific journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. He has participated as a consultant or expert in numerous projects funded by public and private organizations. He is President of the Greek Association of Supply Chain Management (EELBE).