Essence: Data Engineering & Distributed Computing Systems

Academic Staff

  • Christos Anagnostopoulos Dr Christos Anagnostopoulos

    Dr Christos (Chris) Anagnostopoulos is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Distributed and Pervasive Computing, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow. His expertise is in the areas of large-scale distributed data systems and in-network information processing. He has received funding for his research by the EC/H2020, UK EPSRC and the industry. Dr Anagnostopoulos is an author of over 150 refereed scientific journals/conferences [scholar]. He is leading the Essence: Pervasive & Distributed Intelligence within the Knowledge and Data Engineering Systems Group (IDA Section). Dr Anagnostopoulos before joining Glasgow was an Assistant Professor at Ionian University (2013) and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Athens (2009) and University of Thessaly (2011). He has held postdoctoral positions at University of Glasgow and University of Athens in the area of mobile and context-aware computing. He holds a BSc, MSc, and PhD in Computing Science, University of Athens (2008). He is an associate fellow of the HEA, member of the ACM and the IEEE.


  • Kostas Kolomvatsos Dr Kostas Kolomvatsos

    Dr Kostas M. Kolomvatsos is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Pervasive Computing Systems, Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Thessaly. His research interests are Intelligent Systems, Machine Learning, Computational Intelligence, Soft Computing, and Edge/Cloud Computing.He has held a Marie Sklodowska Curie Research Fellowship at the School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow in the area of distributed data streams analytics. He has received funding for his research from EC/H2020 and National Initiatives, while he is an author of over 90 articles [scholar]. He holds a BSc from Athens University of Economics and Business, MSc and PhD in Computer Science University of Athens (2013). Dr Kolomvatsos is leading the Intelligent Pervasive Systems (iPRISM) research group, Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Thessaly and associate member of the Pervasive Computing Research Group, University of Athens. He is a member of the ACM and the IEEE.


  • Fani Deligianni Dr Fani Deligianni

    Dr Fani Deligianni holds a PhD in Medical Image Computing (Imperial College London), an MSc in Advanced Computing (Imperial College London), an MSc in Neuroscience (University College London) and a MEng (equivalent) in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Aristotle University, Greece). Her PhD work was on augmenting 3D reconstructed models of the bronchial tree with 2D video images acquired during bronchoscopy. Bronchial deformation was modelled based on Active Shape Models (ASM) and a predictive tracking algorithm was incorporated to improve tracking of the endoscopic camera. She was awarded an MRC Special Research Training Fellowship in Biomedical Informatics to explore links between structural connectivity as it is measured with Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI) and functional brain connectivity captured with resting-state (rs)-fMRI. She was based at the Biomedical Image Analysis group in Computing Department of Imperial College London. Her research work suggests a prediction framework to study the link between structural brain connectivity and functional brain connectivity.


  • Jordi Mateo Fornés Dr Jordi Mateo Fornés

    Dr Jordi Mateo Fornés is currently a Lecturer at the University of Lleida (UdL). He received a B.S. in Computer Science degree in 2012 from the Escola Politècnica Superior of the Universitat de Lleida (UdL). And the M.S. in Computer Science from Escola Politècnica Superior (EPS) of the Universitat de Lleida (UdL), in 2013. He holds a PhD in Cloud architectures and services. His research interest involves different topics related to Operations Research (stochastic optimization), High-Performance Computing (parallelization of algorithms), Cloud computing, Internet of things (IoT), Decision Support Systems, eHealth and Agriculture 4.0. He has participated in various R/D projects funded through competitive and non-competitive calls of public or private entities. Besides, he regularly participates as a reviewer at multiple JCR conferences and journals. Dr Jordi Mateo Fornés research experience is accreditated in more than 20 publications with an h-index equal to 9 (Google Scholar) with 313 citations.

Associate Academic Staff

  • Dimitrios Pezaros Prof Dimitrios Pezaros

    Dimitrios Pezaros is (full) Professor of Computer Networks in the School of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow. He is the head of the Glasgow Systems Section (GLASS) and founding director of the Networked Systems Research Laboratory (netlab) at Glasgow. Prof Pezaros has published widely and is leading research in computer communications, network and service management, and resilience of future virtualised networked infrastructures, exploring technologies such as, e.g., Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). He has received funding in excess of £3.5m for his research by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the European Comission (EC), the London Mathematical Society (LMS), the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the University of Glasgow, and the industry (incl. BT, Huawei, Airbus Group, Brocade, Google, NATS, Solarflare).He has been a visiting professor at the University of Athens, Department of Informatics and Telecommunications (2019), and he currently serves as Associate Editor on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management. He holds BSc (Hons.) and PhD degrees in Computer Science from Lancaster University, and has been a doctoral fellow of Agilent Technologies Inc. between 2000 and 2004. Prof Pezaros is a chartered engineer, a fellow of the BCS, a fellow of the HEA, and a senior member of the IEEE and the ACM.


  • Rod Murray-Smith Prof Rod Murray-Smith

    Roderick Murray-Smith is a Professor of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow, in the "Inference, Dynamics and Interaction" research group. He works in the overlap between machine learning, interaction design and control theory. In recent years his research has included multimodal sensor-based interaction with mobile devices, mobile spatial interaction, Brain-Computer interaction and nonparametric machine learning. Prior to this he held positions at the Hamilton Institute, NUIM, Technical University of Denmark, M.I.T., and Daimler-Benz Research, Berlin. He works closely with the mobile phone industry, having worked together with Nokia, Samsung, FT/Orange, Bang & Olufsen and Microsoft. He was a member of Nokia's Scientific Advisory Board. He was the Director of the SICSA research pool, and previous Head of Section of the Information, Data & Analysis Section in the School of Computing Science.


  • THEODOROS (THODORIS) ANAGNOSTOPOULOS Dr Theodoros Anagnostopoulos

    THEODOROS (THODORIS) ANAGNOSTOPOULOS received B.Eng. degree from the UNIWA, Greece, in 1997, B.Sc. and M.Sc.IS. degrees from the AUEB, Greece, in 2001 and 2003, respectively. He received Ph.D. degree from the NKUA, Greece, in conjunction with the UNIGE, Switzerland, in 2012. He also received M.Ed.Sc. degree from the HOU, Greece, in 2018. He has worked in private and public sector as well as in industry and academia worldwide. He has also chased funding and involved in national and international academic research and industrial innovation projects. Currently, he holds a Lecturer (Teaching) position in CS at DigiT.DSS.Lab at Department of Business Administration at the UNIWA, Greece. He also holds an Associated Lecturer position in IoT at Department of Infocommunication Technologies at ITMO University, Russia. Dr. Theodoros Anagnostopoulos holds two patents, in U.S.A. and E.U., where he is the Inventor, while IP is with Ordnance Survey: Great Britain’s Mapping Authority, U.K.

Research Staff

Researchers and PhD Students
  • Sham Puthiya Dr Shameem Parambath

    Dr Shameem Ahamed Puthiya Parambath (Sham) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate member of the Essence Team within the Knowledge and Data Engineering Group in Information, Data and Analysis (IDA) Section, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow working with Dr. Christos Anagnostopoulos and Prof. Roderick Murray-Smith under the EPSRC Closed-loop Data Science project. ​Before joining University of Glasgow, Sham was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Qatar Computing Research Institute, Doha in the area of machine learning for recommender systems. Shameem holds a BTech, MS and PhD in Computing Science from Kerala University (India), Umea University (Sweden) and University of Technology Compiegne (France), respectively. His research interests are Sequential Learning, Learning with Feedback, Mutli-Armed Bandits, and Recommender Systems [scholar].


  • Fotis Savva Dr Fotis Savva

    Dr Fotis Savvas is a member of the Essence Team within the Knowledge and Data Engineering Group in Information, Data and Analysis (IDA) Section, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow. His work on “Query-Driven Learning for Next Generation Predictive Modelling and Analytics” received 2nd place at the Student Research Competition at ACM SIGMOD 2019. In 2016 he was awarded an EPSRC scholarship for his PhD studies. He holds a BSc (Hons) First Class in Computer Science from the University of Glasgow (2016). His research is focused on creating Machine Learning models that can be applied in Database Systems and Big Data contexts to expedite query processing along with accurate explanations for the results. His research interests are Machine Learning, Big Data Engines, Expediting Complex Query Processing using ML Models, and Explanations in Aggregate Query Results. [scholar]


  • Matt Douglas Mr Matt Douglas

    Mr Matt Douglas is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Kostas Kontis (Principal Supervisor) and Dr Anagnostopoulos (Second Supervisor). His research area is primarily in Aerospace Sciences investigating the flight profile optimization of Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) launch vehicles using multi-fidelity optimization techniques and the novel application of Machine Learning. He previously gained an MSc in Aerospace Engineering from the University of the West of England (2019) where he focused on flight test data collection systems for fast-jet aircraft. He also holds a BSc (Hons) in Geoscience from the University of St Andrews (2009). He is a military pilot with 1500 hours of flying experience including 1000 hours on fast jets primarily on the Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4


  • Mr Saleh ALFahad Mr Saleh ALFahad

    Mr Saleh ALFahad is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Anagnostopoulos (principal supervisor). He received his B.Sc in Computer Science from King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals in (2011) and his MSc in Computer Networks Security CNS from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) in (2018). His research interesting focus in Edge computing with Predictive Intelligence.


  • Kian Wang Mr Kian Wang

    Mr Qiyuan Wang is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Anagnostopoulos (Principal Supervisor) and Prof Pezaros (Second Supervisor). He received his Master’s degree (MSc) in Data Science from the University of Glasgow in 2020. Previously, he graduated from China University of Mining and Technology in Computer Science and Technology with Bachelor’s degree (BSc) in 2019. He has work experiences as a Java backend developer intern and a data analyst intern in iQIYI Inc and ADVANCE.AI Group in China. His research areas are outlier and novelty detection and prediction in edge computing environments.


  • Qianyu Long Mr Qianyu Long

    Mr Qianyu Long is a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Dr. Anagnostopoulos (Principal Supervisor) and Dr. Deligianni (Second Supervisor). He received his B.Sc in Mathematics from the University of Macau (2018) and his Master degree in statistics from the Australian National University (2020). His research areas are: Distributed Machine Learning, Edge computing, and Statistical Machine learning.


  • Mousumi Hota Mrs Mousumi Hota

    Mrs Mousumi Hota is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Christos Anagnostopoulos (Principal Supervisor) and Dr Lewis Mackenzie(Second Supervisor). She received her BTech in Information Technology from Silicon Institute of Technology, Biju Patnaik University of Technology, India(2007). She has worked as a Lecturer with 5 years experience of teaching C, C++, Data Structures using C, RDBMS for undergrad engineering students in India. She has worked in corporate for about 7 years including Amazon where she worked as a Workflow analyst. Other experiences include working as Analyst Developer at GCU,UK, Research Trainee at KIIT, India. Her recent experience involves working at a SaaS start up company based in India as an Associate Product Manager. Her research areas of interest are Mobile Edge Computing, Adaptive & Inferential Predictive Analytics in Internet of Things (IoT) environments and Mobility Modelling.


  • Fatima Ms Fatima Ghanduri

    Ms Fatima Ghanduri is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Anagnostopoulos (principal supervisor) and Drs Kolomvatsos and Michala (second supervisors). Her research areas are predictive analytics and modelling for financial risk management. She received her Honours in Computer Science from the Robert Gordon University (2020), Aberdeen, where her thesis was in Machine and deep learning for Credit Risk. Fatima has also previously interned in both financial and the oil and gas industry, with a greater interest in computational finance.


  • Tahani Ms Tahani Aladwani

    Ms Tahani Aladwani is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Anagnostopoulos (principal supervisor) and Drs Deligianni and Kolomvatsos (second supervisors). She received her B.Sc in Computer Science from Taif University in (2015) and her MSc in Computer Networks from UQU in (2018). Her research interesting focus in Cloud computing, Mobile Edge Computing, Machine Learning and IoT.


  • Natascha Harth Dr Natascha Harth (BMW Research)

    Dr Natascha Harth received her B.Sc in Business Information Technology from the Cooperated University Mannheim, Germany (2014) in cooperation with Hewlett Packard (HP). Natascha worked for HP as a Technical Consultant for Business Intelligent solutions. She was awarded a Master (MSc) in Data Science from the University of Glasgow (2016). Her research areas are: Edge Computing, intelligent predictive modelling for Internet of Things (IoT) environments, and Stochastic Optimisation.


  • Ibrahim Alghamdi Dr Ibrahim Alghamdi

    Dr Ibrahim Alghamdi received his Master in Computer Science from Monmouth University in 2014 and his BS from Al-Baha University in 2009. Alghamdi has been with Al-Baha University since 2010, teaching courses in programming languages, networking, and software engineering. His research areas are Resource Allocation in Cloud and Edge Computing.


  • Stefanos Sagkriotis Mr Stefanos Sagkriotis

    Mr Stefanos Sagkriotis is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Pezaros (principle supervisor) and Dr Anagnostopoulos (second supervisor) funded through an EPSRC/BT iCASE studentship, researching NFV MANO for resource-constrained environments. He received his degree in Informatics and Telecommunications from the University of Peloponnese, Greece (2017). He holds a Master's degree (MSc) in Data Science from the University of Glasgow, UK (2018). Stefanos conducted his MSc project research on energy efficiency profiling of virtualisation frameworks over resource-constrained devices in the group. Stefanos' previous work is on teletraffic theory and stochastic modelling. [scholar]


  • Wei Ma Mr Wei Ma

    Mr Wei Ma is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Ntarmos (principle supervisor) and Dr Anagnostopoulos (second supervisor). Before coming to Glasgow, Mr Ma graduated from the University of Manchester in artificial intelligence with MSc degree(2016) and Harbin Institute of Technology with BSc degree (2014), which is in China. In addition, he has previously worked in Oracle in China one year. His research interests are: Data Mining, NoSQL/Big Data systems, and Machine Learning.


    • Interns / Alumni / External Collaborators
    • Dr Fotis Savva
      Dr Fotis Savva has graduated his PhD in 2021 on Query-driven learning for automating exploratory analytics in large-scale data management systems; Now Senior Researcher in Oracle (UK).

    • Dr Atoshum Cahsai
      Dr Cahsai has graduated his PhD in 2020 on Scaling kNN Queries Using Statistical Learning; Now in industry (SAS).

    • Dr Abeer Farouk Tawfeek Ali
      Dr Ali has graduated her PhD in 2020 on Placement of Security-related Virtualised Network Functions over Data Center Networks

    • Dr Richard Cziva
      Dr Cziva (ESnet/Berkeley Lab) was a Research Associate at the School of Computing Science under the EU/H2020 GNFUV project until 2018.

    • Mr Mir Hassan
      Mr Hassan was a Visiting Researcher from the Huazhong University, 2020.

    • Mr Panagiotis Fountas
      Mr Fountas was a Visiting Researcher from the University of Thessaly, 2020.

    • Mr Valentin Orru
      Mr Orru was a Visiting Researcher from the University of Grenoble, 2019.

    • Dr Theodoros Anagnostopoulos
      Dr T Anagnostopoulos is an external collaborator and has been a Visiting Researcher from the University West of Attica since 2017.

    • Mr Stefanos Nikolaou
      Mr Nikolaou was a MSc Student (2018) and a Research Assistant (2018-2019) at the School of Computing Science. Now in industry (DirectID) as Machine Learning Data Scientist.

    • Mr Jordan Kalfas
      Mr Kalfas was a scientific collaborator and MSci Student (2020) at the School of Computing Science.

    • Ms Ekaterina Aleksandrova
      Ms Aleksandrova was a scientific collaborator and MSci Student (2018) at the School of Computing Science. Now in industry (Microsoft) as Software Development Engineerer.

    • Mr Yiannis Kathidjiotis
      Mr Kathidjiotis was a scientific collaborator and MSci Student (2019) at the School of Computing Science. Now in industry (Barclays) as Big Data Developer.

    • Mr Naji Shehab
      Mr Shehab was a scientific collaborator and MSci Student (2018) at the School of Computing Science. Now in industry (SAS) as Associate Software Developer.

    • Mr K Psychogyiopoulos
      Mr Psychogyiopoulos was a scientific collaborator and MSc Student (2018) at the School of Computing Science. Now in industry (Zess) as Machine Learning Engineer.

    • Mr Leonidas Reppas
      Mr Reppas was a scientific collaborator and MSc Student (2019) at the School of Computing Science. Now in industry (THG) as Linux Engineer.

    Collaborators Links