George Papadimitriou received his Ph.D. in computer science in December 2023, he was supervised by Ewa Deelman. He was born and raised in Greece. He did his undergraduate degree in electrical and computer engineering in Greece and then moved to the United States for his Ph.D.

Why did you choose a computer science field?

My father was into computer engineering, and was involved in repair work. I decided to follow in his footsteps, but during undergrad, I noticed that I was more drawn towards computer science courses: anything to do with databases and high-performance computing was very interesting to me.

Why did you choose ISI?

When I applied to ISI, I knew it was the place where DNS (domain name server) and internet research was born. I looked through ISI’s advisors and found Ewa’s work, which was a good fit for what I wanted to do.

What were your primary research focuses at ISI?

I was interested in how the national cyberinfrastructure can be used to accelerate and accommodate experiments and simulations from other domains. I collaborated a lot with weather scientists and geoscientists, helping them run and deploy their applications in cloud computing. My research focused on how we can leverage the available infrastructure and introduce automation to deploy things on the fly. I also provided optimization on data movement and placement of tasks in the infrastructure. I chose this specific topic because I want to help scientists get the most out of the resources they have. I also enjoy cross-domain collaboration – for example, I knew nothing about weather sciences but I gradually learned what they do and what their needs were.

What's the most impactful project you worked on?

I worked on a paper describing the infrastructure and deployment process we created for weather forecasting applications. It details how we can leverage cyberinfrastructure to optimize performance and automation. As the weather is always changing, there is a need to respond quickly during more critical periods like severe weather conditions. Having automation that is easy to execute has a direct impact on weather forecasters’ day-to-day operations. It helps them identify locations in which there are dangerous conditions such as flash flooding, and lets them notify first responders rapidly as the process is fully automated, so they can help during adverse situations.

What challenges did you face during the process of research?

I had to pick up and learn a lot of new fields and domains to understand why code works differently in certain scenarios. Also, during research, even if you want to explore many ideas, you have to prune them down to one that you can dive deeper into. This process can be frustrating, but I fortunately had a group to support me.

What's the biggest takeaway during your time at ISI?

I learned not to be afraid to reach out for help when I am facing a problem. Researchers should never be isolated when we’re working. Since I did a lot of research rather than teaching when I was at ISI, I also realized my true passion lay in research and development rather than becoming a teacher at a university. My time at ISI helped me eliminate that future pathway.

What are your plans after ISI?

I would love to work for a national lab in the United States, or as a research scientist in industry at a Big Tech company. If I end up working for a lab, I would collaborate with ISI as an external partner, to bring in new data that might be able to improve existing projects.