Paul

The Inaugural Lecture of Professor Paul Spirakis - The Science I love

5:30pm - 7:00pm / Tuesday 8th October 2019 / Venue: Electrical Engineering & Electronics
Type: Lecture / Category: Public
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Science is one of the greatest achievements of the human race, and for me it has been a wonderful intellectual adventure.

A scientific/ research career is an exciting, very rewarding and ennobling activity, particularly if one is fortunate to contribute to the creation of some new Science (as many Scientists do), and to the creation of some new Scientists too!
My journey into Science (and in particular Computer Science and its Theory) was not a direct path until now. It looks more like a random walk (a stochastic process) in a dynamically changing “graph” (in retrospect) with, perhaps, some right intellectual phases to prepare me for the next phase.
In this walk I have primarily been attracted by three pillars: Probability, Game Theory, and Distributed Computing. One can see each of them as attractors. I have been in love with Mathematics since I was a child, and very curious about the mysteries of time, change, dynamicity and the unpredictable.
It is therefore natural to wonder what such things mean for Computing, its Theory and its future. So, this talk is about some aspects of Science and also about a personal love story that does not end; let’s try to guess some next steps.

Professor Spirakis graduated from National Tech. University of Athens, Greece in June 1978. His career started as a Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering & Informatics, School of Engineering, University of Patras. Professor Spirakis became Departmental Chairman from September 1987 to September 1993. In September 1996, he was made Director of the Research Academic Computer Technology Institute. C.T.I. is under the auspices of the Ministry of Education of Greece. CTI is, under a recent law, the main Informatics Technology Institute of the Ministry of Education. From 1996, Paul was appointed Director of the Distributed Systems and Telematics Laboratory at the University of Patras. In addition, he took on the role of Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Computer Engineering & Informatics, School of Engineering, University of Patras from 2005 – 2009. Since 2013, Professor Spirakis has been Chair in The University of Liverpool Department of Computer Science. He is also Head of the Council of the Liverpool University Initiative on Network Sciences and Technologies (NeST).