Dimitris Vrakas

Dimitris Vrakas is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Informatics, School of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh). He holds a PhD in Intelligent Planning Systems and has conducted post-doctoral research focusing on Planning for the Semantic Web. His professional experience includes roles as a Lecturer (per Greek law 407/80), Informatics Instructor in multiple educational institutions, and IT consultant for medium-sized enterprises through the Go-online Project.

Education:

• Bachelor of Science (1995–1999): Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
• PhD (2000–2004): Intelligent Planning Systems, Dept. of Informatics, AUTh
• Postdoctoral Research (2005–2007): Planning for the Semantic Web, AUTh

Research Interests: Automated Planning, Heuristic Functions, Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Machine Learning Applications (Energy Management, NILM), Semantic Web Services, and Smart Environment Technologies. His work bridges theoretical AI advancements with practical implementations in energy systems and emergency response.

Publications: Over 45 papers (including 15 journal articles) and 5 book chapters, with a focus on energy disaggregation, evacuation algorithms, and semantic web composition. His work demonstrates expertise in applying advanced techniques like GANs for data generation and reinforcement learning for adaptive planning.

Awards:

• 2025 ACM SIGMOD Test-of-Time Award for contributions to time-series clustering

Advising & Grants: Active in guiding PhD candidates (as per recent calls) and coordinating projects like the IRIS RISK PARADIGM for industrial safety. His work involves developing smart university platforms for energy monitoring and collaborating on EU-funded initiatives.

Labs & Teams: Member of the Intelligent Systems Lab at AUTh, contributing to projects like the BOnSAI ontology for smart buildings and the IRISPortal for risk management. He also coordinates the Hellenic Artificial Intelligence Society and chairs conferences like SETN 2016.