short biography
Pavlos Fafalios

Welcome to my personal web page!

I am an Assistant Professor at the School of Production Engineering and Management of the Technical University of Crete (Chania, Greece) and Affiliated Researcher at the Centre for Cultural Informatics of the Information Systems Laboratory (ISL) of FORTH-ICS (Heraklion, Greece). I obtained my Engineer's Diploma in 2009 from the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering of University of the Aegean (Samos, Greece), and my MSc and PhD in 2012 and 2016, respectively, from the Computer Science Department of University of Crete (Heraklion, Greece). I have conducted post-doctoral research at the L3S Research Center of Leibniz University of Hanover (3 years) and the Information Systems Laboratory (ISL) of FORTH-ICS (4.5 years).

My research interests fall in the areas of Information Systems, Information Retrieval, Knowledge Representation, Knowledge Engineering, and Semantic Web, with a special focus on interdisciplinary research in these areas and the application of the research findings in different disciplines, including Cultural Heritage and the Humanities. The results of my research have been published in more than 50 refereed research articles. I regularly participate to the programme committee of international conferences and workshops (including ISWC, ESWC, HT), and review papers for international journals (including the ACM Transactions on the Web, the ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, and the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology).

You can find detailed information in my Curriculum Vitae (last update: March 2022) (ελληνική έκδοση - Μάρτιος 2022).

latest news

• Junuary 2023: Our paper "A Workflow Model for Holistic Data Management and Semantic Interoperability in Quantitative Archival Research" has been accepted for publication at Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (DSH), Oxford University Press.

• Junuary 2023: Our paper "The SeaLiT Ontology - An Extension of CIDOC-CRM for the Modeling and Integration of Maritime History Information" has been accepted for publication at the ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH).

• October 2022: Our book chapter "Building and Exploring a Semantic Network of Maritime History Data" has been published by Brill as part of the volume "Mediterranean Seafarers in Transition".

• July 2022: Our paper "CIDOC-CRM and Machine Learning: A Survey and Future Research" has been published at Heritage (MDPI).

• April 2022: We have published (as an open access dataset) the SeaLiT Knowledge Graphs, an RDF dataset of integrated maritime history data.

• February 2022: We have published (as an open access dataset) the SeaLiT Ontology, an extension of CIDOC CRM for the modeling and integration of maritime history data.

• October 2021: Our paper "Beyond Facts - a Survey and Conceptualisation of Claims in Online Discourse Analysis" has been accepted for publication at the Semantic Web Journal (IOS Press).

• June 2021: Our paper "Towards Semantic Interoperability in Historical Research: Documenting Research Data and Knowledge with Synthesis" has been accepted for publication at the International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2021).

• June 2021: Our paper "Open Domain Question Answering over Knowledge Graphs using Keyword Search, Answer Type Prediction, SPARQL and Pre-trained Neural Models" has been accepted for publication at the International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2021).

• April 2021: Our paper "FAST CAT: Collaborative Data Entry and Curation for Semantic Interoperability in Digital Humanities" has been accepted for publication at the ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage.


[older]
publications [dblp, google scholar]
2022
P. Fafalios, G. Samaritakis, K. Petrakis, K. Doerr, A. Kritsotaki, A. Axaridou, and M. Doerr
Building and Exploring a Semantic Network of Maritime History Data
In: Mediterranean Seafarers in Transition (Series: Brill's Studies in Maritime History, Volume: 14), 2022.
P. Fafalios
Historical Research meets Semantic Interoperability: The Documentation System SYNTHESIS and its Application in Art History Research
International Digital Humanities Conference (DH2022), 2022 (abstract published and presented as a long presentation).
P. Fafalios
Advanced IT Tools for Historical Research with Archival Material
8th IMHA International Congress of Maritime History, 2022 (abstract published and presented as a long presentation).
Y. Tzitzikas, M. Mountantonakis, P. Fafalios, and Y. Marketakis
CIDOC-CRM and Machine Learning: A Survey and Future Research
Heritage 5, No. 3, 2022.
K. Todorov, P. Fafalios, and S. Dietze
BeyondFacts'22: 2nd International Workshop on Knowledge Graphs for Online Discourse Analysis
ACM Web Conference 2022 - Companion Proceedings, 2022.
K. Boland, P. Fafalios, A. Tchechmedjiev, S. Dietze, and K. Todorov
Beyond facts – A survey and conceptualisation of claims in online discourse analysis
Semantic Web, 13(5), IOS Press, 2022.
2021 show
2020 show
2019 show
2018 show
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projects top
PortADa (2023 - now)

Project "PortADa – Port Arrivals Data. Automatic data collection for a large-scale comparative history of 19th century shipping: a Digital Humanities approach to maritime heritage", MSCA Staff Exchanges 2022 (Project Number: 101129889). More information at:

Role: Leading.

FE.P.I.B. (2022 - now)

Project "FE.P.I.B. – Feminisms and Politics in the Interwar Balkans (1923-1939)", Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation (Project Number: 03050). More information at: http://feminisms-politics.ia.uoc.gr/

Role: Supervision and implementation of activities related to data management.

RICONTRANS (2020 - now)

Project "RICONTRANS – Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th to early 20th Century)", ERC Consolidator Grant (No 818791). More information at: https://ricontrans-project.eu/

Role: Supervision and implementation of activities related to data management.

ReKnow (2020 - 2022)

The ReKnow project (No 890861) aims to provide models and tools for helping researchers in empirical and descriptive sciences (like History) in better documenting, analysing and investigating research processes and data. Emphasis is given in maintaining the provenance of data and on the usability of the developed tools. More information at: https://reknow.ics.forth.gr/.

Role: Principal investigator, fellowship holder

SeaLiT (2020 - 2022)

Project "SeaLiT – Seafaring Lives in Transition. Mediterranean Maritime Labour and Shipping during Globalization, 1850s-1920s", ERC Starting Grant (Νο 714437). More information at: http://www.sealitproject.eu/

Role: Supervision and implementation of activities related to data management.

CMBR (2019 - 2020)

The Centre for the study and sustainable exploitation of Marine Biological Resources (CMBR) is an integrative large-scale Greek Research Infrastructure (RI) of the National Roadmap for RI’s, dedicated to the advancement of Blue Growth through the study and sustainable exploitation of marine biological resources in the Eastern Mediterranean. For more information visit: http://cmbr.hcmr.gr/.

Role: Research and implementation of methods and tools for data integration and exploration.

Alexandria (2016 - 2019)

The ALEXANDRIA project (ERC Advanced Grant, No 339233) aims to develop models, tools and techniques necessary to explore and analyze Web archives in a meaningful way. ALEXANDRIA will significantly advance semantic and time-based indexing for Web archives using human-compiled knowledge available on the Web, to efficiently index, retrieve and explore information about entities and events from the past. For more information visit: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/339233.

Role: Postdoctoral researcher; Research on methods for the semantic and entity-based exploration of Web Archives.

BlueBRIDGE (2015 - 2016)

European initiative funded under the H2020 framework to further develop and exploit the iMarine e-Infrastructure data services for an ecosystem approach to fisheries. For more information visit: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/675680.

Role: I extended the system X-Search for enabling the stochastic re-ranking of search results based on extracted entities. Moreover, I participated in the study of methods for quantifying the connectivity and evolution of a semantic warehouse.

iMarine (2012 - 2014)

iMarine (Data e-Infrastructure Initiative for Fisheries Management and Conservation of Marine Living Resources) is a European Commission funded project that kicked-off on 1st Nov 2011. It is an open and collaborative initiative that will establish a data infrastructure to support the Ecosystem Approach to fisheries management and conservation of marine living resources. For more information visit: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/283644.

Role: I designed and developed the system X-Search for the semantic exploration of search results, as well as the system X-Link for the extraction of entities and their further enrichment by exploiting Linked Data. Moreover, I participated in the development of the top-level ontology "MarineTLO" which allows describing and integrating marine data.

MUMIA (2012 - 2014)

Multilingual and Multifaceted Interactive Information Access (MUMIA), COST Action IC1002. The main objective of the Action is to coordinate and support the interaction and harmonization of high quality research at a European level in the field of multilingual and multifaceted interactive information access with a view to contribute to the development of next-generation search systems. For more information visit: https://www.cost.eu/actions/IC1002/.

Role: Member of the action, participation to working groups and management committee meetings, involved in WG4 (Semantic Search, Faceted Search and Visualization).

software top
FastCat Catalogues
Web application that supports researchers studying archival material, such as historians, in exploring and quantitatively analysing the data (transcripts) of their archival sources. Developed under my supervision by the undergraduate student Giorgos Rinakakis. More information
ClaimLinker
ClaimLinker is a Web service and API that links arbitrary text to fact-checked claims, offering a novel kind of semantic annotation of unstructured content. The system is based on a scalable, fully unsupervised and modular approach that does not require training or tuning and which can serve high quality results at real time. Developed under my supervision by the undergraduate student Evangelos Maliaroudakis. More information.
SPARQL-LD
SPARQL-LD is an extension of SPARQL 1.1 that enables to directly fetch and query RDF data from heterogeneous sources via SERVICE calls. A distinctive characteristic of SPARQL-LD is that it allows querying and integrating even data in datasets returned by a portion of the query, i.e. identified at query-execution time. More information.
X-Search
X-Search is a web search service that reads the description of an underlying search source, and is able to query that source and analyze in various ways the returned results. X-Search also exploits the availability of semantic repositories. More information.
X-Link
X-Link is a fully configurable, Linked Data-based, named entity extraction tool. X-Link is capable to a) identify entities of interests (e.g. persons, locations, organizations, etc.) in any type of document, b) link the identified entities with semantic resources (i.e. with URIs), c) enrich the identified entities with semantic information (i.e. with properties and related entities), and d) infer whether and how the identified entities are associated. More information.
IOS
IOS (Instant Overview Search) is a search-as-you-type functionality for web searching which provides an overview of the results as the user types his query letter-by-letter. More information.
Theophrastus
Theophrastus is a system that supports the automatic annotation of web documents through entity mining and provides exploration services by exploiting Linked Open Data (LOD), in real-time and only when needed. Theophrastus was awarded the 1st prize in Blue Hackathon 2013. More information.
Ithaca
Ithaca is a tool that reads open datasets, converts their data to RDF triples and loads the derived triples in a Virtuoso warehouse, offering thereby an API for directly exploiting the underlying data. Ithaca was awarded the 1st prize in Hack4Med 2014 (the HOMER project Hackathon). More information.
experience top
December 2023 - now
Assistant Professor
School of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete (Chania, ‎Greece).
Courses:
  • Computer Programming Methodology (PEM 101) [winter semester 2023-2024]
  • e-Business (PEM 230) [winter semester 2023-2024]
June 2019 - November 2023
February 2020 - September 2023
Visiting Lecturer
Department of Management Science and Technology, Hellenic Mediterranean University (Crete, ‎Greece).
Courses:
  • Algorithms and Data Structures (MST304) [winter semester 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023]
  • Software Technology (MST602) [spring semester 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023]
  • e-Commerce and Internet Applications (MST604) [spring semester 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023]
June 2016 - May 2019
Postdoctoral Researcher
L3S Research Center, University of Hannover,
Hannover, Germany.
December 2010 - May 2016
Research assistant, software engineer, graduate fellow
Information Systems Laboratory (ISL),
Institute of Computer Science (ICS), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH),
Heraklion, Greece.
education top
October 2012 - May 2016
Ph. D.
Computer Science Department, University of Crete, Greece
Thesis title: Exploiting Linked Data in Exploratory Search [pdf, slides]
Thesis Supervisor: Yannis Tzitzikas
2010 - 2012
M. Sc. in Information Systems and E-commerce Technologies
Computer Science Department, University of Crete, Greece
Thesis title: Indexes and Algorithms for Scalable and Flexible Instant Overview Search [pdf, slides]
Thesis Supervisor: Yannis Tzitzikas
2003 - 2009
Dipl. Eng. in Information and Communication Systems Engineering
Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering, School of Engineering, University of the Aegean, Greece
Thesis title: Meta-Seeker: a Retroactive Algorithm for Personalizing Information from Multiple Web Search Services [pdf]
Thesis Supervisor: Ioannis Anagnostopoulos
fellowships, awards and distinctions top
Individual postdoctoral research fellowship "Marie Skłodowska-Curie" (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019) for the implementation of the project ReKnow – Research Knowledge Documentation, Analysis and Exploration in Empirical and Descriptive Sciences (Grant Agreement ID: 890861), June 2020 – November 2022. More information here.
Finalist for the "2019 ERCIM Cor Baayen Young Researcher Award", awarded each year to a promising young researcher in computer science or applied mathematics. More information here.
Fellowship from legacy "Maria Michael Manasaki" for the academic year 2014-2015. This fellowship is awarded once a year to an exceptional Ph.D. candidate of Computer Science department of University of Crete. More information here.
1st prize in Hack4Med, the HOMER project Hackathon, held in the University of Crete, Department of Computer Science, 16-17 May 2014, Voutes Campus, Heraklion, Greece. Michalis Mountantonakis and I developed and presented the system "Ithaca: From Open Data to Linked Open Data".
1st prize in Blue Hackathon 2013, held in the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), 1-2 July 2013, Gournes, Heraklion, Greece. Panagiotis Papadakos and I developed and presented the system "Theophrastus: A Semantic Exploration Tool for Marine Taxonomists".
PhD scholarship by FORTH, 2013-2016.
MSc scholarship by FORTH, 2010-2012.
some personal information top

I was born in Chios, a beautiful island at the east of Greece, just five miles off the Asia Minor coast. In September 2003, I moved a few miles souther to Samos island where I lived five very beautiful years studying Information and Communication Systems Engineering. In November 2008 I joined the Greek Army Forces for one year to accomplish my military service. In February 2010 I started my graduate studies (MSc, PhD) in Crete island (Heraklion). In June 2016 I moved to Hannover (Lower Saxony, Germany) as a postdoctoral researcer, and in June 2019 I returned to Heraklion where I live until now.

In my free time, I like spending time with friends, watching and playing sports, traveling around, watching movies, reading books, and taking photos (you can find some here).