I am an Assistant Professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Patras, from which I also received a PhD and BSc. My research is related to the design and evaluation of innovative cultural heritage, usable security and personalized information systems.
Published papers in top-ranked scientific venues, which received awards, and (co-) supervised Ph.D. and M.Sc. students. Long-standing professional experience as a project coordinator and principal investigator in EU-funded and National research projects. Fluent in German, English and Greek.
Email: fidas AT upatras.gr :: LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fidasI am the Project Coordinator of the following European and National research projects.
EU Project CREAMS :: #mixedreality #augmentedreality #virtualreality #artstudents #exhibitions
Scaffolding Creativity of Arts Students: Framework, Toolchain, and Educational Material on how to Create their Own Virtual Exhibitions
(€382,644, 2022-2025, Project Coordinator, Principal Investigator). Funding Agency: European Commission.
More info: CREAMS Project Website
National Project CogniX :: #electroencephalography #eyetracking #cognition
Electroencephalography and Eye Gaze-driven Framework for Intelligent and Real-Time Human Cognitive Modelling (€194,295, 2022-2024, Project Coordinator, Principal Investigator). Funding Agency: Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.).
More info: COGNIX Project Website
EU Project TRUSTID :: #cybersecurity #userauthentication #biometrics
Intelligent and Continuous Online Student Identity Management for Improving Security and Trust in European Higher Education Institutions
(€291,310, 2021-2023, Project Coordinator, Principal Investigator). Funding Agency: European Commission.
More info: TRUSTID Project Website
National Project DeAR Museum :: #mixedreality #virtualreality #culturalheritage
Development and production of augmented and virtual reality applications supporting narrative tours at the Tomato Industrial Museum in order to convey a
personalized experience to the visitors of an old factory (€300,000, 2021-2023, Principal Investigator).
Funding Agency: Research-Create-Innovate.
More info: DeAR Museum Project Website
[New Research Equipment - May 2022]
We are happy to announce further extension of our laboratory research infrastructure by acquiring cutting-edge equipment with a total amount >50K. Among others, we obtained a state-of-the-art 41-channel Electroencephalography (EEG) device, a mixed-reality hands-free controllable headset and couple of eye-tracking lens.
We aspire to design and conduct EEG multi-modal experiments to measure cognitive traits within innovative breakthrough interaction realms like MR/AR and VR and gesture control along with visual and/or acoustic stimuli. Moreover, we aim to develop and evaluate an electroencephalography based framework for intelligent real-time modeling of user cognitive intentions, thus laying the ground for ground-breaking advancements in various Brain Computer Interaction research fields.
More info: COGNIX Project Website
[New EU Project - December 2021] Happy to act as a Project Coordinator and Principal Investigator of the EU project CREAMS - Scaffolding Creativity of Arts Students: Framework, Toolchain, and Educational Material on how to Create their Own Virtual Exhibitions. The proposal was submitted in collaboration with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Cognitive UX GmbH (Germany), the Cyprus University of Technology (Cyprus), the Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art (Israel), and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway).
[New Research Project - July 2021]
Excited to receive a research grant of €194,295.00, from the
Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.),
to Support Faculty Members & Researchers in the field of Engineering Sciences and Technology.
[New Publications - June 2021] Happy about our three new paper publication at the 18th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT 2021), entitled "A Field Dependence-Independence Perspective on Eye Gaze Behavior within Affective Activities", "An Empirical Study of Picture Password Composition on Smartwatches" and "Understanding Insider Attacks in Personalized Picture Password Schemes".
[New EU Project - March 2021] I am honored to act as a Project Coordinator and Principal Investigator of the EU project TRUSTID that has been approved by the European Commission with a total funding of €291,310. The proposal was submitted in collaboration with the University of Cyprus (Cyprus), the Institute of Systems and Robotics - University of Coimbra (Portugal) and Cognitive UX GmbH (Germany).
[Workshop at ACM UMAP 2021 - January 2021] I am looking forward to running the 3rd edition of our workshop APPS 2021 - Adaptive and Personalized Privacy and Security, in conjunction with ACM UMAP 2021. Our special focus in 2021 will be on challenges and opportunities related to the Covid-19 outbreak on ensuring security and privacy of sensitive data and secure user interactions in online systems such as challenges for online distance learning, the need for touchless authentication, e-Government, e-Commerce, etc.
[New Publication - January 2021]
Our paper entitled "From hot-spots towards experience-spots: Leveraging on users’ sociocultural experiences to enhance security in cued-recall graphical authentication" has been accepted at the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.
[New Position - November 2020] I am thankful for spending the last years at the Department of Cutlural Heritage Management and New Technologies of the University of Patras. Many thanks to all my colleagues and supporting staff for a fruitful and joyful collaboration. I am very happy to join the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the University of Patras. I look forward to work with my new colleagues and students.
[Guest Editor of Special Issue - November 2020] I am the Guest Editor, together with Dr. Stella Sylaiou and Dr. George Pavlidis, of the Special Issue "Mixed Reality in Culture and Heritage" at the Heritage Journal. Please download the Call for Papers (.pdf)
[Best Paper Award - October 2020]
We received the prestigious UMUAI James Chen award for best paper of 2019, for our paper entitled "A cognition-centered personalization framework for cultural heritage content".
The User Modeling and User Adapted Interaction (UMUAI) James Chen Award is bestowed annually to the author(s) of the best paper of the year.
The award has been donated by the Chen family in commemoration of James R. Chen.
In this work, we have designed and developed CogniKit, an extensible tool for human cognitive modeling. It is based on the analysis, classification and visualization of eye tracking data such as gaze points, fixation count and duration, saccades, gaze transition and stationary entropy, heat maps, areas of interests, etc. These are further processed, analyzed and classified for detecting higher level human cognitive factors such as cognitive processing styles and abilities. CogniKit comprises of two main components: i) a software application that collects and processes low- and high-level eye gaze data metrics in real-time; and ii) an extensible interactive workbench for storing, analyzing, classifying and visualizing the collected eye gaze data.
Relevant paper: ACM WI 2019, ACM IUI 2020
Mixed reality technologies embrace hand gesture-based interaction modalities, which can be leveraged by picture passwords, as they require users to draw secret gestures on a background image. In this work, we have designed and developed HoloPass, a novel mixed reality application that utilizes the Microsoft HoloLens device that allows users to directly interact with picture-based holograms in order to perform user authentication tasks. The current prototype was developed in Unity 3D, using C# and Microsoft's Mixed Reality Toolkit for HoloLens, and follows implementation guidelines of Microsoft Windows 10 Picture Gesture Authentication in which users draw three secret gestures on a background image that acts as a cue.
Relevant papers: ACM CHI 2019, INTERACT 2019
This work aims at scaffolding end-users in improving the security of graphical passwords through a playful interaction design in mixed reality. For doing so, we elaborated on a playful interaction de-sign framework and developed, based on it, an experimental mixed reality (MR) application that deployed multi-modal and playful user interaction experiences. A user evaluation woth 30 participants revealed that introducing playful characteristics in the design of MR graphical passwords had a catalyst effect on the security of user generated passwords and simultaneously affected significantly end-users' perceptions and understanding related to security semantics of graphical passwords.
Assistant Professor (2021-) at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Patras
Assistant Professor (2016-2020), Tenure-track Lecturer (2013-2016) at the Department of Cultural Heritage and New Technologies, University of Patras
Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus (2011-2013)
Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Patras, University of Ioannina, Technical Institute of Patras (2004-2011)
I am always happy to discuss with prospective students new research endeavors in the areas of Information Systems and Culture, Modelling Human Cognition in Interactive Systems, and Usable Security. If you are interested to discuss your research idea please don't hesitate to contact me at fidas AT upatras.gr
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