CURRENT NUSTRAPISTAS
Theo J. Mertzimekis, PhD is an Associate
Professor of Experimental Nuclear Physics at the Department of
Physics of the oldest University in Greece, the University of
Athens and an Academy of Athens Laureate in Experimental
Physics. Theo has a strong commitment in scientific
excellence, academic integrity, scientific communication and
public outreach, being a thrilled fan of Carl Sagan's scicomm
style. For a full profile visit his personal page at
[mertzimekis.gr].
Dr. Varvara Lagaki (Post Doc) was born in Athens in 1990
and graduated from the Department of Nuclear Physics of the University
of Athens in 2014. She has joined NuSTRAP group in 2012, doing her
senior thesis project on “Nuclear targets characterization using Ion
Beam Analysis (IBA)”, carrying out measurement at the Tandem Accelerator
of INPP, NCSR “Demokritos”. She was earned a MSc degree from NTUA where
she worked with the analysis of experimental data of the capture
reactions 87Sr(p,γ)88Y and 88Sr(p,γ)89Y which were acquired in the past
at the Dynamitron Accelerator Laboratory (DTL) of the University of
Bochum by employing a 12"x12" 4π NaI detector. For her PhD, she worked
at MIRACLS project at ISOLDE/CERN supported by an ERC grant. Her main
work was the construction and the realization of the first tests of a
proof-of principle electrostatic ion beam trap for laser spectroscopy
of short-lived radionuclides. She is currently working as a Post-Doctoral
associate at RAMONES EU project. She speaks English (C2) and French (B1)
and also has basic programming skills on python.
Ioannis (John) Madesis (Post Doc) was born in Athens
in 1986. He graduated from the School of Applied Mathematical and
Physical Sciences of the National Technical University of Athens. In
his diploma thesis "Optical study of the ferroelastic
Sb5O7I with the use of Raman spectroscopy" he
studied the temperature dependence of various vibrational modes of the
Sb5O7I ferroelastic crystal. He earned his M.Sc.
from the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Program "Microsystems and
Nanodevices", NTUA. In his master thesis, titled "First-Principles
computational study of the High-Temperature Super-Conductor
YBa2Cu3O7-x", he performed phonon
calculations for the respective HTSC, developed a set of scripts that
automates the calculation procedure, and also applied an innovative
method for the reduction of calculation time, with results up to 50%
reduction. For his PhD he worked ar APAPES project at the University
of Crete and the Tandem Laboratory of the Institute of Nuclear and
Particle Physics. There he developed a new, atomic-physics oriented
beamline from scratch, and perfomed high-resolution, state selective
Zero degree Auger Projectile Spectroscopy measurements, to explore the
non-statistical Single Electron Capture to pre-excited He-like ion
projectiles. He is currently working as a Post-Doctoral associate at
RAMONES EU project, developing novel instrumentation for in-situ
radioactivity monitoring in oceanic environments.
Georgios Siltzovalis (PhD candidate)was born in Athens,
in 1991. He graduated from the Department of Physics at the University
of Patras, in 2016. One year before his graduation he completed an
internship at NCSR Demokritos under Senior Researcher Dr. G.
Apostolopoulos’s supervision on the construction and calibration of a
device for electrical characterization of materials at high temperatures.
In 2018 he completed the graduate program in Medical Physics – Radiation
Physics. His MSc thesis was based on calculations and measurements of
neutron fluence in the treatment room and along the maze of a 18 MV
medical linear accelerator, under supervision from Prof. J. Kalef-Ezra
(University of Ioannina) and Research Director I.E. Stamatelatos
(NCSR Demokritos). In 2021 he joined the NuSTRAP Group to initiate his
PhD on simulation and optimization of a novel spectrometer for in situ
radioactivity monitoring in oceanic environments. The above study will
be part of the H2020 EU FET RAMONES Project.
Polytimos Vasileiou (PhD candidate) graduated
from the Physics Department in 2018. He is fascinated by
nuclear physics and initially joined NuSTRAP in order to
research more on nuclear spectroscopy and related experimental
setups. Timos completed his MSc thesis on studies of radiative
proton-capture reactions in mid-weight nuclei. For his PhD he
has focused on the structure of neutron-rich nuclei in the Hf region.
Language credentials include C2 in English, C1 in
German and B2 in Spanish. Timos has good skills on Windows
enviroments, and basic knowledge of Linux enviroments, and C
and LaTeX programming languages. He is also a swimmer and
enjoys playing basketball in his spare time.
Katerina Zyriliou (PhD candidate) a PhD candidate
in the Section of Nuclear and Particle Physics at the
University of Athens. She was born in Athens in 1994 and
graduated from the Department of Physics at the University of
Ioannina in 2016. Her BSc thesis focused on studying the
resonances in the 12C-12C reaction by
performing experiments at the Tandem Accelerator Lab (NCSR
Demokritos) under Prof. X. Aslanoglou's supervision. She is
interested in experimental aspects of nuclear physics and has
joined NuSTRAP group soon after she was admitted in the
Department of Physics MSc program, where she worked on the
analysis of gamma angular distributions of medium-heavy
nuclei. She obtained her MSc in summer 2018. She speaks good
english and some french. She has advanced skills on Windows
and basic programming skills on C++ and LaTeX. She has been
working professionally as a classic and modern dancer for the
past 13 years. She enjoys movies and video games.
Ana Dura (PhD candidate) was born in Tepelene,
Albania in 1994 and was raised in Athens, Greece. She
graduated from the Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment in
2016 and went on with her MSc studies in Environmental,
Disaster and Crisis Management. Her MSc thesis focused on the
Disaster Management Cycle in the Philippines after Typhoon
Haiyan swept across the country in 2013, and consisted of
primary data along the path of the typhoon. She currently
pursues a PhD degree working on the development of machine
learning algorithms aiming at natural hazards risk
assessment. Ana is an ELIDEK Scholar. Her scientific fields
of interest oscillate between geology, physics, chemistry and
mathematics. Ana grew up in diversity and speaks six
languages. She is an incognito freelance short story writer
and a genuine lover of the fine arts. She is passionate about
leading a healthy lifestyle and is exceptionally adventurous.
Angelos Karadimas (BSc Candidate) is an undergraduate student with
particular interest on nuclear structure. He has taken over the task
to analyze recent experimental data from the HPGe array ROSPHERE on
light stable Yb isotopes using advanced gamma-ray spectroscopical techniques.
Argyro Karakitsou (BSc Candidate) is an undergraduate
student at the Department of Physics at the University of Athens. She
is mostly interested in experimental Physics and data analysis as she
enjoys understanding and explaining the implementation of different
theories in the real world. She is currently taking her first steps in
programming in Matlab. For her thesis she is exploring underlying
mathematical structures in long time-series of cosmic radiation.
Specifically, she performs the GMM method on neutron data to deduce
threeshold values for solar erruptions and Forbush decreases. Argyro
is fluent in English and has elementary proficiency in French. In her
free time she enjoys exploring the city with her friends,reading books
and articles, being active in the human rights department and maybe
going on a camping trip.
Margarita Efstathiou (BSc Candidate) was born in 1999 and
she grew up in Athens. She is an undergraduate student in the
Department of Physics in the University of Athens. Margarita has
taken over the analysis of recent data from the gamma detection
array ROSPHERE to study the excitation functions of stable Yb
isotopes impinged by 12C ions. Generally, she loves
experimental physics because she likes to see the laws of nature
in action and how to set up a layout to do this. She has basic
knowledge in programming in Matlab environment. Her favorite hobbies
are travelling, theatre, playing videogames and watching football.
Michalis Kontis (BSc Candidate) has joined the NuSTRAP group at the beginning of his
senior year, looking to work on a computational project involving
state of the art instrumentation and detector simulation. He has taken
over the responsibility to carry detailed Geant4 simulations on various
setup alternatives involving the proposed gSPEC apparatus at GSI. He is
currently serving his mandatory duty in the Greek Army forces awaiting
graduation.
Konstantinos Papanastasopoulos (BSc Candidate) is a
senior student working on his BSc thesis with the NuSTRAP group. He is
responsible for evaluating recent data of nuclear EM moments towards a
major upgrade of the NUMOR database.
Christos Andrikopoulos (BSc Candidate) is a
senior student at UoA/Physics that has joined the NuSTRAP
group very early in his academic studies. He speaks good
French, is proficient in English (TOEIC & Michigan
Proficiency) and some Russian is there, too. For the time
being, he is. He has a passion for nuclear physics, and
discovery in general. For his BSc thesis he works at the
Tandem Lab of NCSR "D" setting up a neutron detector
array. His favorite hobbies are drawing, travelling,
woodworking and tinkering.