Socrates Dimitriadis

still resisting social media, you won't find me anyweb else

I was born and raised in Kilkis, a small town of Central Macedonia, but there are several places that I also call home, such as Ioannina, Xanthi, Heraklion, Providence, Boston and Washington DC. I'm a computer+cognitive scientist with a research experience in vision science, and a professional experience on web technology. I also have a keen interest in sports, especially road running, and I love traveling (who doesn't), especially when combined with outdoor activities such as hiking, snowboarding, swimming and boating.

Education

I initially studied computer science at the Universities of Ioannina and Crete, and then I kind of switched to cognitive science and went to Brown University. As a kid, I spent many years learning foreign languages (French, German, Italian) that I can't speak anymore but their cultural influence is still alive. A few years ago I got a private pilot license for single engine airplanes (and a seaplane rating), and last year I completed an MBA degree. I've always been intrigued by the process of learning, both academically and personally, and I'm a strong supporter of lifelong education.

Hellenic Open University

School of Social Sciences

[MBA thesis] Consumers’ response to online businesses’ drifting towards the subscription business model

2022

Brown University

Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences

[PhD thesis] Visual Recognition with a Large Scale Network of Dynamical Systems

[MSc thesis] A Network of Networks Approach to Computational Modeling of Pop-out Phenomena in Visual Attention

2003 - 2010

University of Crete

Department of Computer Science

[MSc thesis] An Image Retrieval Platform Based on a Biologically Inspired Architecture

2000 - 2002

University of Ioannina

Department of Computer Science

[BSc thesis] Human-Computer Interaction with Gesture Recognition

1995 - 1999

Business

Founder & Full-Stack Developer

2006

It started as a hobby while in grad school and ended up becoming a full fledged business. A combination of right timing and risk seeking made Greek-Movies the first search engine of - exclusively Greek - video streaming, and a site that was serving one million visitors per month. As a full stack developer I was taking care of everything, from system administration and back-end development to front-end responsive design and adertising. It may not be the trend any more but it gave me the privilege of experiencing software development to its fullest extent and I loved it. Working on every aspect of a website, from the engineering all the way to the marketing and the regulatory compliance, offers a unique perspective on the Internet.

Teaching

George Mason University, Department of Computer Science

Assistant Professor
2018-2023

George Mason University, Department of Computational and Data Sciences

Adjunct Faculty
  • Modeling and Simulation | spring 2018
2018

Brown University, Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences

Teaching Assistant
  • Neural Modeling Laboratory | spring 2005/2006/2007/2009
  • Cognition | fall 2006
  • Quantitative Methods in Psychology | fall 2004
  • Visualizing Vision | fall 2005
2004-2009

6th Technical High School of Heraklion, Greece

Teacher of Computer Science
  • UNIX Operating System
  • Multimedia
  • Computer Applications
2002-2003

University of Crete, Department of Computer Science

Teaching Assistant
  • Computational Vision | spring 2002
  • Computer Networks | fall 2001
  • Intelligent Systems | spring 2003
2001-2003

Vocational Training Institute of Kilkis, Greece

Teacher of Computer Science
  • Programming in C | spring 2001
  • Sound Processing and Synthesis | spring 2001
2001

Research

I initially worked on neural networks because I found it an excellent approach to start understanding (and implementing) intelligence. Then I did research on computer vision because I thought it offered the perfect testbed for experimenting with computational intelligence theories. Finally, I switched to cognitive science because I came to believe that deciphering intelligence requires the devoted study of the computational aspects of the human mind. I'm fascinated by large scale dynamical neural networks and I hope they will help us discover many of the answers we're looking for.

Advertising vs subscription business models for the web

Hellenic Open University

School of Social Sciences

Use of structural equation modeling to study the consumers’ behavior when online content providers (streaming services in particular) are transitioning from the advertising to the subscription business model.

2021-2022

Computational modeling of human visual recognition

Brown University, Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences

Ersatz Brain Group

Modeling of visual recognition based on large scale integration of dynamical neural networks. High performance computing with MPI and C++ on an IBM 166-node linux cluster. Watch a few visualizations of a system that models several features of the human visual recognition process. Each of these simulations models about 1 billion neural synapses and requires about 100 CPU cores for several minutes.

2005-2010

Visual detection of urban and landscape changes

Brown University, School of Engineering

Laboratory for Engineering Man/Machine Systems – Computer Vision

Use of satellite imagery for the detection and evaluation of landscape and urban changes

2008-2009

Computational modeling of human visual depth perception

Brown University, Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences

3D Shape Perception Lab

Bayesian modeling of visual depth perception for inference under limited cognitive resources

2005-2007

Computational modeling of human visual attention

Brown University, Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences

Ersatz Brain Group

Modeling of popout phenomena in visual attention with a network of dynamical neural networks. Watch two visualizations of the network dynamics that model the Müller-Lyer illusion and the popout phenomena in visual attention

2003-2005

Content based image retrieval

FORTH Institute of Computer Science – University of Crete

Computational Vision and Robotics Laboratory

Development of a content based image retrieval system based on a multi-agent architecture

2001-2003

RoboCup

FORTH Institute of Computer Science

Computational Vision and Robotics Laboratory

Development of a robotic soccer platform including the mechanical, electronic, and software components. Watch the first stages of a prototype robot that was developed from scratch

2001-2002

Distance learning by video conference

Cultural and Educational Technology Institute

Test and evaluation of video conference platforms for distance learning

2000

Neural networks

University of Ioannina, Department of Computer Science

Development of web-based Neural Network simulators for a distance learning course. Try the following NN web simulators; the code is 20 years old but still working (if your browser allows Java applets)

Hopfield Net Multilayer Perceptron Self-Organizing Map

1998-1999

Gesture recognition

University of Ioannina, Department of Computer Science

Development of a gesture recognition system for the translation of the Greek Sign Language. It uses a 5DT data glove interface and is trained with a neural network.

1998-1999

Projects

Some projects that I'm currently working on in my free time. They're quite small but filling

A few projects that I voluntarily developed in the past