Special Scientists
Special Scientists
Andreas Tjirkallis received his Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, London (2003) and his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cyprus (2013). He is currently the CEO of ACE R&D - GT Engineers, enterprise in the field of Mechanical Engineering, and a Teaching and Research Assistant/Special Scientist at the University of Cyprus, School of Engineering. He has served as an Assistant Professor at Frederick University-Department of Mechanical Engineering (2019-2021) and Teaching and Research Assistant at the University of Cyprus, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (2016 – 2019).
He is a registered member of the Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber (ETEK), acting as a Mechanical Engineering ETEK expert, as well as an approved by the Cyprus Human Resource Authority (AnAD) Mechanical Engineering External Examiner in the building industry. He is a consultant for a number of public/governmental, municipalities and private organisations. His teaching and research expertise are in the fields of Signal Processing, Image Analysis, HVAC, Design and Automation and Mechatronics.
Dr. Nestoras Antoniou is a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Cyprus, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in energy and climate change, experimental fluid mechanics and sustainable design. He is an alumnus of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). From 2024 to 2026 he held an individual postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Eastern Finland under the YUFE4Postdocs programme, co-funded by Horizon Europe. As lead researcher of the fellowship project, he worked on coupling machine learning with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to support the adaptation of urban microclimates to climate change. His research investigates urban microclimate in relation to thermal comfort and climate change adaptation, combining high-resolution CFD, wind-tunnel and field experiments, and physics-informed machine learning. He has published in leading international journals in building and environmental science and has presented his work at numerous international conferences. In 2023 he received the Young Scientist Award of the European Meteorological Society and the Tromp Foundation. He earned his PhD through a joint doctoral programme between the University of Cyprus and Eindhoven University of Technology. His thesis investigated the urban microclimate of a real compact, heterogeneous urban area using numerical and experimental methods. He holds a Diploma in Architectural Engineering from the University of Patras and an MSc in Building Energy and Environmental Performance Modelling from the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. He is a member of the Technical Chamber of Cyprus and a reviewer for several international journals
Dr. Marios Georgiou is a researcher specializing in Environmental and Atmospheric Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Environmental and Atmospheric Sciences from the Cyprus Institute, and he holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Physics as well as a Bachelor's degree in Physics from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Georgiou worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Cyprus Institute (2016-2017), focusing on the development of technologies for solar energy production and storage, as well as processes related to desalination and brine treatment. In 2018, he took on the coordination of the PROTEAS research facilities, the first pilot plant for solar thermal energy production and storage, combined with desalinated water production. In his professional career, Dr. Georgiou has been the Head of the PROTEAS research facilities at the Cyprus Institute since 2023. He has made significant contributions to numerous European research projects, serving as the Principal Investigator for the Cyprus Institute. He has participated in international conferences, delivering presentations and publishing scientific articles in the fields of solar thermal energy, energy storage, and desalination.