STEFANOS GIANNAKIS

Civil, Hydraulics & Environmental Engineer, MSc, PhD   

Research Professor (Ramon y Cajal Fellow)

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain 

SUMMARY

Dr. Stefanos Giannakis completed his undergraduate university studies at the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece, which involved the Diploma in Civil Engineering, specialized in Hydraulics and Environmental Engineering (5-year course, Master equivalent), followed by a Master in Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development by the same institute, graduating 2nd from his class. In December 2010 he initiated doctoral research in Greece in water disinfection and decontamination by solar energy. After signing a memorandum of understanding among AUTh and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain) for co-supervised PhD degrees, he was awarded a double Doctorate of Philosophy in 2014 (Cum Laude) with European Doctoral Mention in Environmental Engineering.

Following, as an employee of the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering (EPFL, Switzerland), he was contracted under a Swiss National Foundation-supported project on the treatment of hospital wastewaters in Africa and Latin America by Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs). From January 2017 till September 2019, he participated in an 18-partite consortium of an EU H2020 Project (WATERSPOUTT), engaged in drinking water problems in Africa. He coordinated a Working Package (WP4) related with microbial disinfection and its enhancement by AOPs. In this last period, 5 months of research visits to Italy (University of Torino) and USA (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) were completed. 

In overall he has contributed with 117 peer-reviewed publications, and 3 book chapters. More specifically, >90% of the publications are in Q1 ranked journals (source: Scopus), in the TOP#5 Journals of the field of “Environmental Engineering” and “Water Resources”. Currently he has an h index of 36, has received 4276 citations, and is in the TOP 5 Authors in “Solar Disinfection” (No2) and “Disinfection” Scopus Topic (No4) (Scopus, 10.06.2023). On conference dissemination level, he has contributed with 42 communications, among which International and National (Swiss, Greek and Colombian) titles, invited talks and keynotes.

Until 2021, the most important awards that Dr. Giannakis has acquired were the Mobility Grant by the Mediterranean Office for Youth, the highly competitive "Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship", and the “Prime Speciale” for the exceptional performance during his post-doctoral work. In 2021, he was awarded the “Water 2021 Young Investigator Award”, for his research and outstanding scientific contribution in the field of water resources is specifically focused on water/wastewater treatment. Besides, he was included in the lists of Top 2% of scientists worldwide in the category of “Physical Chemistry”, ranking in the top 0.6% (2019), 0.35% (2020), and top 0.2% (2021) in “Environmental sciences”, respectively (source: Baas, Jeroen; Boyack, Kevin; Ioannidis, John P.A. (2022), Data for: "Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators").

In total, he has worked in 13 Projects, 5 as Principal Investigator, and 8 as Investigation Team member. More specifically, he participated in 2 European Projects (LIMPID, as researcher; WATERSPOUTT as Work Package Leader), 4 International (European-JPIamr; Swiss-Hungarian as researcher; Swiss-Ivorian-Colombian as Researcher; Iranian as External Member) and 7 National (Swiss, as Principal Investigator; Spain, as PI/Research Team member). Also, he currently participates in 2 Projects of Innovation in Education (1 European-CHET Erasmus+, 1 National CREATIVATE-Spain). 

In 2019, he started his academic career in Spain at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. Since January 2020, he is employed as an “Investigador Ramon y Cajal” (ETSICCP-UPM), specializing in wastewater treatment, as well as the environmental photochemistry and photobiology. Over the last years, he has directed the laboratory work of all incoming visiting PhD students in the Group of Advanced Oxidation Processes in EPFL and the Laboratory of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering in UPM, Spain. More precisely, the supervision of 3 Postdoctoral researchers, the research stays of 19 incoming PhD students/PhD level trainees, 41 MSc Theses/Post-graduate Trainees & 2 BSc Thesis/Graduate trainees has been completed. Currently, has completed a PhD thesis (co)supervision and he (co)supervises 3 PhD Theses in Iran and Algeria.

In addition, he serves as a reviewer for 20+ Scientific Journals. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering (Elsevier), and Editor of “Microorganisms” and “Water”  Journals of MDPI (Switzerland). He has acted as Guest Editor in various Special Issues of  Elsevier and MDPI. Finally, he has evaluated research projects for Spanish, French Chilean, Polish and Kazakh National funding bodies.

B.2. Breve descripción del Trabajo de Fin de Máster (TFM) y puntuación obtenida