Research Team

Sotiria P. Stefanidou

Dr. Sotiria P. Stefanidou is Research Associate at Civil Engineering Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) and the Institute of Engineering Seismology & Earthquake Engineering, in the field of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics. She is an experienced and active researcher for more than 10 years, having participated in 11 national and EU Funded research programs. She is Teaching Staff in International Hellenic Univ. and Affiliate Scientific Staff at AUTh. She received her PhD with Distinction in 2016 in fragility analysis of reinforced concrete bridges (AUTh) and holds two MSc degrees in Earthquake Engineering (2007) and Natural disasters & climate change (2019). She has more than 45 publications in international referred journals, conferences and books and has worked on fragility analysis of roadway and railway bridges for single and multiple hazards, machine learning techniques in fragility analysis and software development, performance based design, bridge retrofit (RC,FRP jackets and seismic isolation), multiobjective optimization of retrofit measure selection, etc. Dr. Stefanidou works as Freelancer chartered civil engineer (Greek Institution of Civil Engineers, Greece) since 2006 and was member of the Structural Engineering/Consultancy firm Penelis Consulting Engineers SA from 2012 to 2019. She has worked as structural engineer in projects in Greece and worldwide for AKTOR SA, TERNA, TERNA Oversees, REDEX, etc. She is co-founder and partner of a start-up structural engineering company in Greece. She is a Board Member of Hellenic Society of Earthquake Engineering (ETAM) and General Secretary of Scientific Community of Concrete Research (EPES), since 2019 and member of IABSE Task Groups 1.8 and 5.2 since 2020.

Scopus : https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=36187365200

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=91-ldcIAAAAJ&hl=en

ResearchGate : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sotiria_Stefanidou

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sotiria-stefanidou-msc-phd-4b9b8537/

Elias A. Paraskevopoulos

Dr. Elias Paraskevopoulos is Research Associate at Civil Engineering Department & Mechanical Engineering Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) and the Institute of Engineering Seismology & Earthquake Engineering, in the field of Structural & Multibody Dynamics. He is an active researcher for more than 18 years, experienced in software development (C++, Python, Delphi). He has participated in more than 10 national, EU funded and US funded research programs and served as Coordinator to two of them. He has more than 50 research papers in international referred journals, conferences and books and has worked on software development for structural analysis, multibody dynamics, functional mockup interface development, co-simulation techniques, etc. He has been working for Altair Engineering, US for 6 years as a researcher. Dr. Paraskevopoulos works as Freelancer chartered civil engineer (Greek Institution of Civil Engineers, Greece) since 2001 and was member of the Structural Engineering/Consultancy firm Penelis Consulting Engineers SA from 2012 to 2019. He is experienced user of a wide range of software packages (Scia Engineer, ETABS, SAP2000, SOFISTIK, FESPA, ΑNSYS, NASTRAN, ADAMS, HyperWorks, etc.) and has worked as structural engineer in projects in Greece and worldwide for AKTOR SA, TERNA, TERNA Oversees, REDEX, etc. He is the CEO of a start-up company in Greece focused on research and structural projects.

Scopus : https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=8644205000

Google Scholar : https://scholar.google.gr/citations?user=WAODODsAAAAJ&hl=el

ResearchGate : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elias_Paraskevopoulos

Vassilis K. Papanikolaou

Dr. Vassilis K. Papanikolaou is an Assistant Professor in the Laboratory of R/C and Masonry Structures, School of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He received his Diploma in Civil Engineering in 1999 (AUTh) and his MSc degree with distinction in Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics from Imperial College, London, UK in 2000. He worked as a freelance civil engineer and computer programmer until 2012, also participating, as a research assistant, in ten European and National research projects held by the AUTh Research Committee. In 2008, he received his PhD degree (AUTh) on nonlinear analysis of concrete bridges and in 2012 he won a post-doctorate grant by the Hellenic State and the European Union and worked for two years as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute of Engineering Seismology and Earthquake Engineering (ITSAK), Thessaloniki, Greece, in the fields of earthquake engineering and embedded electronics design. His research interests include analysis of reinforced concrete and masonry structures, finite elements and material constitutive models, computational engineering and programming methods, experimental applications on new and retrofitted structures and applications of embedded electronics in earthquake engineering and structural monitoring. He participates in teaching of seven undergraduate and two postgraduate courses and has authored and co-authored over 50 papers in peer reviewed journals, international and national conferences with an h-index of 8 and about 400 citations (Scopus).

Scopus : https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=10042614500

Google Scholar : https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=a47DNyMAAAAJ&hl=en

ResearchGate : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vassilis_Papanikolaou

Andreas J. Kappos

Andreas Kappos is a world-leading researcher and consultant in the field of Structural Engineering, in particular Bridges and Seismic Design of Structures. He has long been working in this field on topics like analysis procedures for structures (reinforced concrete and masonry buildings, and bridges) subjected to earthquake loading, and developed several methods and models for seismic assessment (both deterministic and probabilistic) of these structures, as well as design procedures based on the use of modern analysis tools. He was also involved in experimental work on the behaviour of reinforced concrete members subjected to cyclic loading, with emphasis on structural walls with special types of reinforcement and/or retrofitted using fibre-reinforced polymers (FRPs) and, more recently steel-reinforced polymers (SRPs). He developed new approaches for the assessment of the seismic vulnerability of existing structures and the associated losses and was involved in several projects on seismic risk assessment and earthquake scenarios for European cities and other structural engineering issues. He is the author or co-author of three books in English, and another two in Greek, edited three collective work volumes, and has contributed several chapters to books edited by others. He has published extensively in the field of Earthquake Structural Engineering and related fields (over 300 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings), and his work was recognised internationally (over 2400 citations in Scopus h-index=32, over 6500 citations in Google Scholar, h-index 46).

Prior to joining Khalifa University, he held a dual appointment at City, University of London and at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. At City University he founded and led the Research Centre for Civil Engineering Structures, while in Thessaloniki he was Head of the Structures Section from 2008 to 2010. He has first joined the Department as a lecturer in 1988, after having completed his PhD studies in 1986. In 1983-1984 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Univ. of California, Berkeley. From 1995 to 1999 he worked at the Dept. of Civil Engineering, Imperial College London (UK), first as a lecturer and later as a Reader of Earthquake Structural Engineering.

In addition to his academic activities, he has been involved in several consultancies on topics like the seismic design of bridges and buildings, the assessment and retrofit of damaged structures, and various aspects of use of concrete in bridges, tunnels, and other civil engineering works.

Andreas Kappos is the Secretary General of the European Association of Earthquake Engineering (EAEE) since 2010 and the Coordinator of the EAEE Working Group on Bridges since 2004. He has also served as a member of a number of scientific committees dealing with seismic design and assessment (he recently led the Project Team that drafted Eurocode 8 Part 3).

Scopus : https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=7006224993

Google Scholar : https://scholar.google.gr/citations?user=oc98m9cAAAAJ&hl=el

Personal Website : https://ajkap.weebly.com/english.html

ResearchGate : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreas_Kappos2