Cooperating Institutions
The Institute of Geodynamics of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA-IG) is the host Institution. NOA-IG is the main State research and operational institution for seismology and earthquake monitoring. It monitors seismicity in the Greek territoryon a 24/7/365 basis, processes the data and provides immediate information to the State and the public. The experience of the research, scientific and technical staff at NOA-IG is based on the order of 170 years of operation, since it is the oldest public research institution. The popularization of scientific concepts for the disastrous earthquake phenomenon, so that the State and the population respond properly, following protection measures and based on knowledge and critical thinking, is one of the goals of NOA-IG through activities to students, teachers and the public. The goal of popularizing and diffusing science should incorporate modern developments in pedagogical methods and digital technology. Besides, the modern seismic instrumentation used by NOA-IG for the recording and analysis of seismicity, constitutes one of the main means used for this target, due to their portability and their online connection for real-time data transmission. NOA- IG cooperates with schools of al levels. For more than a decade, the PI and NOA-IG team organize and support educational activities including presentations, teacher edification, participation in science popularization events, and construct models as tools for education reasons.
The Department of Theatre Studies of the University of Peloponnese (UPEL-DTS) was founded in 2003 (PD 118/2003) and has been operating since the academic year 2003-2004. It is part of the School of Fine Arts with premises in the city of Nafplio. In particular, the collaboration of the NOA-IG with the UPEL-DTS aims at the implementation of the research project with the involvement of members of the teaching staff, undergraduate and postgraduate students. The use of resources (technical equipment, classrooms, library collections etc.) will contribute to the organization of theater-pedagogical workshops with students of primary and secondary education level, as well as with teachers in order to raise their awareness for the earthquake phenomenon. The research process will be supported by the internship of undergraduate and postgraduate students and the elaboration of diploma theses and postgraduate theses. During the implementation of the research project the targets will be a) The creation of a theatrical performance by UPEL-DTS students with an artistic character in a script focused on the dissemination of knowledge within the frame of Educational Seismology b) The organization of a conference to disseminate the research results and the conference proceedings publication and c) The publication of a book that captures the overall experience of all the actions of the collaborating institutions, which were incorporated in the context of the implementation of the research project.
The Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of the University of West Attica (UWA-DEEE) is the largest and most fully staffed Department of the University and one of the most fully staffed Departments of Engineering in the country. It offers studies in a wide range of subjects, in which research and innovation constantly produce new and impressive results that directly affect both theproduction and the economy as well as daily life. The mission of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering is a) to provide a high level of engineering training in the subject of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, through undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD studies, b) the production of new knowledge and the contribution to the development of science and technology through independent research and in the context of national and international / European research collaborations, c) to contribute to the regional and national development of the production, the economy and the society, through collaborations with public and private bodies.
The scientific team within the project participates by introducing components of digital technology and VR in the educational interventions. It will collaborate: a) with the NOA-IG for the definition and design of educational material, b) with the UPEL-DTS for the selection and combination of physical and digital components within theatre events, for the production of a hybrid event and the additional action of digital technology and c) with the other two groups for data collection and evaluation of interventions and dissemination actions, offering digital support through ICT. The team will rely on the equipment of the Laboratory of Electronic and Computer Technologies and the resources of Web & E-learning servers. Finally, it will seek the involvement of pre- and post-graduate students (pre- and post-graduate theses).
Working Team
Dr. Ioannis Kalogeras is Research Director, he will be the PI of the project and he will lead the NOA-IG team. He has a long period experience in leading research projects, thus he will be able to manage the project team (WP7). His expertise in seismology, macroseismology and educational seismology will be exploited in the WPs of the project, namely the concepts of educational seismology (WP1), the implementation of the terms of seismology and protection measures in modern digital technics and theater performances (WP1, WP2, WP3), the realization of tasks for citizen seismology (WP6) and the dissemination of the results through various means (WP4, WP5).
Dr. Nikolaos Melis is seismologist and he serves as Research Director at the Institute of Geodynamics of the National Observatory of Athens. As his main research interests include among others seismic networks (deployment, operation, maintenance, real time automatic procedures), seismometry, spectral analysis of seismic signal (methodology, software development), early warning systems, exploring the combination of school and citizen seismology in society, he will be involved in all the WPs.
Maria Ziazia, Scientific Personnel (EDTP), is an active member of the NOA-IG’s scientific staff. She has a long period experience in seismology and seismic parameter estimation,popularization of seismology terms (WP1, WP2,WP3), macroseismology (WP6) and administrative support of conferences (WP4,WP5), and projects (WP7).
Asterios Tsiaras is Associate Professor and his role on the research project is to research and coordinate drama and theatre workshops with students on Educational Seismology and to dissemination of knowledge on earthquakes through theatre performance. As the leader of UoP-DTS team he will be involved in the management committee (WP7). Participation in the programme until February 2022.
Anna Tsichli is a Member of the Special Teaching Staff (E.E.P) and her role on the research project is to research and coordinate drama and theatre workshops with students on Educational Seismology and to dissemination of knowledge on earthquakes through theatre performance.
Christina Zoniou is a Member of the Special Teaching Staff (E.E.P) and her role on the research project is to research and coordinate drama and theatre workshops with students on Educational Seismology and to dissemination of knowledge on earthquakes through theatre performance.
Dr. Elias Frentzos, 43, received his Diploma (1997) in Civil Engineering and MSc (2002) in Geoinformatics, both from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. He also holds a PhD from the Department of Informatics of the University of Piraeus (UniPi), where he has also conducted his postdoc research being a scholar of the Greek State’s Scholarships Foundation. He has participated in several national and European research projects. He has published more than 25 papers with more than 700 citations, in scientific journals such as KAIS, Geoinformatica, and IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), and in conferences such as ACM SIGMOD and IEEE ICDE. He has been awarded by IEEE with the best application paper award in ICDM 2009 for the paper “Clustering Trajectories of Moving Objects in an Uncertain World”. He has served as a reviewer for ACM TODS, IEEE TKDE, VLDBJ and other scientific journals. He has developed several commercial GIS-based applications, and participated as technical manager in several GIS projects. His research interests include spatial and spatio-temporal databases, location-based services and geographical information systems.
Maria Rangoussi, professor. Academic field: Digital signal & image processing, Electronic Systems, E-learning technologies. Prof. Rangoussi will lead the UWA-DEEE group. She will lead the UWA-DEEE team.She will participate in WPs 2,3, in relevance to Virtual Reality and 2D/3D/holographic signal projections, respectively; in WPs 4,6, in relevance to the design, structure and organization of the project website, and in WP 5 (conference). As the leader of UoP-DTS team he will be involved in the management committee (WP7).
Dimitrios Metafas, assistant professor. Academic field: Embedded Systems, Software development, Web based education and gaming. Prof. Metafas has a long (20 years) record as an electronics/software engineer, in developing software applications for various technologies. He will participate in software development for web-based educational and gaming applications (WP2,WP3,WP6) and the integration of digital material in the website (WP4) and in conference (WP5).
Panagiotis Monachelis, EDIP (Laboratory Instruction Staff).Electronic engineer, MSc in Networking & Data Communications. Staff member of UWA-DEEE, specialized in IT, web design, web development, software development. He will contribute to H/W configuration, S/W development and H/W – S/W integration for the VR and the 2D/3D/holographic projection systems, to the project website development and to the conference technical support.
Angelos Charitopoulos, EDIP (Laboratory Instruction Staff).Electronic engineer, MSc in Networking & Data Communications. Staff member of UWA-DEEE, specialized in Communications, Networking and Internet/Web technologies. He will cover the project’s networking needs for the VR and the 2D/3D/holographic projection system, contribute to the project web services and offer technical support to the conference.
Vaia Maragkou, PhD candidate. BSc in Languages, MSc in “ICT for Education”. PhD candidate in UWA-DEEE (supervisor: M. Rangoussi) in the field of VR applications for learning, specialized in the design, development and programming of VR Applications and Environments for learning. She will contribute in the development of educational scenarios and digital learning environments and in VR programming (WP2, WP3, WP4 and WP6), as well as in conference (WP5).
Apostolos Kastritsis, received his diploma degree in Computer Engineering & Informatics from the University of Patras, Greece in 2008, received a diploma degree in Performing Arts & Karawitan Music from the Indonesian Institute of Arts, Surakarta (Indonesia, 2014), achieved a M.Sc degree in Art, Virtual Reality and Multiuser Systems of Artistic Expression from Athens School of Fine Arts (Greece 2015) and Arts et Technologies de l’Image from the University Paris8 (France, 2016) . He also received a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the School of Economics & Business Administration (University of Patras, Greece, 2019). He has worked with several Universities and Research Institutions (CTI Diophantus, University Of Peloponnese, Institute for Language Processing ATHENA) and his research interests include among others human machine interaction, procedural animation, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality applications, interactive systems, computational creativity etc.