Virvou Maria

Virvou Maria is a Professor of Software Engineering and Chair of the Department of Informatics at the University of Piraeus, Greece. She is also Director of the Research Laboratory 'Software Technology' and a co-founder of the IEEE Intelligent Information Systems and Applications (IISA) conference series. With a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Sussex (U.K.), she has held leadership roles including Head of the Department of Computer Science and multiple Senate terms at the University of Piraeus.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Sussex (U.K.), funded by Greek State Scholarships Foundation.
• M.Sc. in Computer Science, University College London (U.K.).
• Bachelor's in Mathematics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Research Focus: Her work spans Software Engineering, AI in Educational Games, User Modeling, and Human-Centered AI. Notable achievements include ranking first globally in Scopus for publications in 'User Modeling' and 'Educational Software', and top 2% in AI researchers per Stanford University rankings. She has authored over 400 publications and edited numerous books/journals.

Key Projects: Leads initiatives like the EPATHLO educational game suite, COGNET-MD medical evaluation frameworks, and VIRTSI trust models for AI interaction. Her recent work explores AI in healthcare, smart tourism, and ethical AI applications in education.