Title: Career Pathways in Computing
In this panel, we will discuss the diverse pathways that a career in computing offers. The speakers will reflect briefly on their own career pathway, outline different pathways in industry or academia that one can follow in the context of their organizations, and pinpoint barriers and obstacles in diversity and inclusion and ways to overcome them based on their own experience, the policies in their organizations, or both.
Moderator
University of Ioannina
Evangelia Pitoura, Professor, University of Ioannina
Short bio: Prof. Evaggelia Pitoura is a Professor at the University of Ioannina, Greece and a Lead Researcher at the Archimedes Research Unit. She has also held visiting positions at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, Univ. of Cyprus and Georgia Tech. She received a BSc degree from the University of Patras, Greece, and an MS and PhD degree from Purdue University, USA. Her current research focuses on responsible and fair data management. She is or was on the editorial board of top-tier journals and has served with various roles in major conferences in data management (including as PC co-chair of ICDE 2012 and general chair of EDBT 2023). She is the recipient of three best paper awards, a Marie Currie Fellowship and two Recognition of Service Awards from ACM. She is an ACM senior member and chair of the Greek ACM-W event steering committee. Her research has received funding from national and international resources.
Participants
Pfizer Center for Digital Innovation
Dora Karamanidou, Sr. Associate, Project Coordinator, Open Innovation Team, Pfizer Center for Digital Innovation
Short bio: Dr. Theodora Karamanidou is a Senior Associate, Project Coordinator in the Pfizer Center for Digital Innovation in Thessaloniki. Being part of the Open Innovation Team, she is responsible for the coordination, management and all the related communications of various established collaborations and initiatives with external partners from the Greek ecosystem. Before Pfizer, she worked as a general Director and Head of R&D at PLiN Nanotechnology, a research-driven start-up company. In parallel, she also worked as a Researcher and Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of Western Macedonia, teaching postgraduate courses at a Biomedical Engineering MSc program and doing research in the field of pharmaceutics. She holds an integrated master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), a doctoral degree in the field of Nanomedicine and Biomedical Engineering (AUTH) and an MBA from the University of Macedonia.
Deloitte
Eleftheria Apostolaki, Assistant Manager in Consulting, Deloitte
Short bio: Eleftheria is a member of Core Business Operations Consulting in Greece, specializing in Core Systems, Digital Banking, Payments, and Trade Finance software solutions. She is a hands-on technology professional experienced in working in complex and project-based environments. Eleftheria has achieved expertise in various areas, including project management, scoping, analysis, quality assurance, and designing and developing test processes. Her contributions have led to swift corrective actions and significant cost savings. She has actively participated in projects for numerous Greek and international financial institutions, taking on responsibilities across all phases of the product life cycle to ensure the delivery of high-quality software.
Netcompany-Intrasoft
Evelyn Kyzirakou, Account Manager Public Sector, Netcompany-Intrasoft
Short bio: Evelyn Kyzirakou, in her current role as Public Sector Account Manager at Netcompany Intrasoft, is managing a diverse portfolio of public accounts and coordinating the sales process of national digital transformation projects. Having carved a successful career trajectory at Global Tech leaders like Microsoft and HP Inc, Evelyn has honed her skills in developing effective revenue growth strategies, yielding results and growing international sales teams. Her academic credentials include an MSc in Management of Business, Innovation & Technology from the University of Sheffield and a BSc in Economics from the University of Piraeus. Skilled in adapting to change, she has successfully navigated fast-paced, complex environments.
Unisystems
Maria Georgiou, Senior Delivery Manager, Unisystems
Short bio: Maria was born in Katerini, Greece and received her diploma in Computer Science and Business Administration from the University of Technology in Darmstadt/Germany. She is working at Unisystems since 2006 starting in the Banking sector as a Business Consultant and Analyst of software development projects. Since 2011, Maria is working for the international business at Unisystems for large scaled IT projects for European Agencies. In the meantime, she acquired a mini MBA from ALBA Graduate Business School along with several certifications required for the execution of projects. Currently, Maria’s role is Senior Delivery Manager as she manages a portfolio of IT projects for European Agencies.
IMDEA Software Institute
Thaleia Doudali, Assistant Professor, IMDEA Software Institute
Short bio: Thaleia Doudali is a tenure-track faculty (Assistant Professor) at IMDEA Software Institute in Madrid, Spain. During Summer 2022 she was a visiting researcher at the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications at the National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos” in Athens, Greece. She earned her PhD from the School of Computer Science in College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), advised by Ada Gavrilovska. At Georgia Tech, her research introduced system-level support for the resource management of extremely heterogeneous hardware. In particular, her dissertation adds machine intelligence to hybrid memory management. This graduation profile featured in GT Computing news and the Daily Digest nicely summarizes her academic journey. During her PhD, she has interned at Dell EMC in Santa Clara (CA, USA), VMWare in Palo Alto (CA, USA) and AMD Research in Bellevue (WA, USA), where part of her work has been patented. Prior to PhD, she received an undegraduate Diploma in ECE, majoring in Computer Science, from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at National Technical University of Athens in Greece. In 2020, she was selected as a Rising Star in EECS. In 2021, she received the Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellowship.
San José State University
Magdalini Eirinaki, Professor, San José State University
Short bio: Dr. Magdalini Eirinaki is a Professor at the Computer Engineering Department and the program Director for the Master’s in Artificial Intelligence program at San Jose State University in California. Her research work covers recommender systems, machine learning, data mining, social graphs, and deep learning applications. Dr. Eirinaki is the recipient of the 2019 Newnan Brothers Award for Faculty Excellence, the 2017 Applied Materials Award for Excellence in Teaching and many of her students have been finalists in the California State University student research awards over the years.
Dr. Eirinaki received her PhD from the Department of Informatics of the Athens University Economics and Business and holds a Master’s degree in Advanced Computing from Imperial College and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from University of Piraeus.