George Caridakis

Associate Professor George Caridakis holds a faculty position at the Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean, where he founded the Intelligent Interaction Research Group (ii.aegean.gr). He also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Athena Research Center (Athena RC) and a Senior Researcher at the National Technical University of Athens' Intelligent Systems, Content and Interaction Laboratory. His research spans Cultural Informatics, AI-driven Interaction, IoT, Mixed Reality, and Semantic Web technologies, with over 75 publications and an h-index of 20. Caridakis has led or contributed to over 20 European/National projects, focusing on cultural heritage preservation, digital twin technologies, and AI applications in education and tourism. He actively supervises graduate theses and teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His work emphasizes participatory methods, context-aware systems, and cross-disciplinary collaboration in cultural spaces.

Education details are not explicitly provided in the text, but his academic trajectory is evident through his roles and projects. Research interests include affective computing, embodied interaction, and heritage digitization. His methodologies often integrate semantic technologies and IoT to solve challenges in cultural preservation and visitor experience optimization. Recent work explores large language models (LLMs) for museum recommendations and robotics in education.

Publications reflect a strong focus on cultural heritage management (e.g., digital twins, crowdsourcing, AR), user-centric design (recommender systems, sentiment analysis), and smart systems (IoT in heritage spaces). His projects like CAnTi and CHEKG demonstrate innovation in collaborative methodologies and modular knowledge graphs. Caridakis has served as a journal/conference reviewer and evaluator for funding bodies, contributing to the advancement of interdisciplinary research standards.

He leads the OpenLab for Cultural Heritage Conservation, integrating VR/AR for site preservation. Collaborations span academia and industry, emphasizing applied research with practical societal impact. Current initiatives include advancing accessibility through regional digital infrastructures and enhancing citizen engagement via participatory frameworks.