Nikos Alexandris

Geomatics & Remote Sensing

Speaks & writes fluently 🇬🇧 English, 🇩🇪 German, 🇬🇷 Greek
Working level 🇫🇷 French (niveau B2), 🇮🇹 Italian (autodidatta)

nikosalexandris@duck.com  

Experiences

Oct 2021-Sep 2025 Technical Lead - PVGIS v6 : code.europa.eu/pvgis/pvgis
Prototype for the European Commission’s public service on photovoltaics
Contract Agent, Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission (EC), Ispra, Italy

Oct 2019-Sep 2021 Exploratory research project THERMOPOLIS
Contract Agent, JRC, EC

Jan 2017-Sep 2019 Geomatics & Remote Sensing expert
Freelancer / Intra-muros Staff, JRC, EC

Dec 2015-Sep 2016 Geospatial support for mapx.io, UNEP/GRID-Geneva

Consultancies

Mar 2015-Sep 2015 Vulnerability evaluation of Greek fir forests to climate change
Independent research project supported by DEMETER

Jan 2014-Aug 2015 Time for recreation and personal development, see also section Online-courses

Apr 2013-Dec 2013 Monitoring Mangroves Restoration from Space,
UNEP/GRID-Geneva

Dec 2012-Feb 2013 Forest fuel type mapping, ArcFUEL, Epsilon International S.A.

January 2013 Adaptation of ArcGIS-based timber volume estimation to
GRASS-GIS, Fondazione Edmund Mach

Various

July 2009 Guest scientist in the Site Classification of European Forests practicum, Silviculture Institute, Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg i. Br., Germany

Mar 2009 Mapping disturbed areas in aged coppice on steep slopes in Rhine & Moselle Silviculture Institute, Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg i. Br., Germany

24 & 25 Apr 2008 Rapid Fire Area Mapping workshop, Co-organized by ECAT-Tirana
& SNV-Netherlands in Tirana, Albania

Mar 2005-Sep 2006 Remote Sensing & GIS expert
Infoterra GmbH, Friedrichshafen, Germany

Education

Oct 2005-Jun 2011 Dr. rer. nat., Dpt. of Remote Sensing & Landscape Information Systems (FeLIS), Faculty of Forest & Environmental Sciences, University of Freiburg, Germany

Oct 2004-Oct 2005 Master’s program, Sustainable Forestry & Land Use
Management, Faculty of Forest & Environmental Sciences, University of Freiburg, Germany – Attended only one year

Sep 1999-Jul 2004

• Diploma, Faculty of Forestry & Natural Environment,
  Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
  5 years of studies, equivalent to Master’s

Training, Practical Forestry in University-owned forests

Jul 2003 & Aug 2002 Pertouli, Trikala, central Greece

July 2001 Taxiarchis, Chalcidice Peninsula, north Greece

Skills

• weak ← * ** *** **** ***** → strong

Remote Sensing & GIS

***** GRASS-GIS

**** QGIS, GDAL/OGR

*** SQLite, PostGIS

OSes & Co

**** Linux (EndeavourOS, Ubuntu), neovim, ZFS, ssh,
Docker, Supercomputing (High-Throughput Cluster)

*** tmux, GNU Parallel

** CI/CD, SCons

Scripting & Versioning

***** Bash

**** Python

*** Git, mlr, R (+knitr)

Typography & Web

*** LaTeX, KOMA-script, HTML, CSS

Advanced Training

Oct 2008-Jan 2009 Einführung in die Statistik mit R

• by Dr. Jürgen Zell, Abteilung Biometrie und Informatik, Forstliche Versuchs- und Forschungsanstalt, Baden-Württemberg (FVA)
• organized by the Center for Key Qualifications/ Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (ZfS), University of Freiburg

15+16 May 2008 Hochschuldidaktische Grundlagen fuer Internationale Doktorandinnen und Doktoranden im Bereich Teaching Assistant I

• by Petra Eggensperger, Arbeitsstelle Hochschuldidaktik Freiburg, Universität Freiburg

Oct 31-Nov 4, 2005 Introduction to RADAR Image Processing

• by Prof. Dr. Steffen Kuntz, organized by the Laboratory for Forest Management & Remote Sensing of the Forestry Faculty at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

November 2004 Einführung in Linux

• by Saher Semáan, Rechenzentrum, Albert-Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg

7+8 June 2004 Special Decision Support System for Environmental Analysis

• organized within the frame of the EU-project geoland by the Laboratory for Forest Management & Remote Sensing of the Forestry Faculty at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Online-courses

Sep 2014-Jan 2018 Fundamentals of Computing specialization at Coursera

• (7 course certificates, 1 capstone project)

Apr-Oct 2014 Data Science Specialization series at Coursera

5 to 30 Nov 2007 National Integrated Environmental Process, Design & Organization, UNEP

• Final assignment discusses key questions of an Integrated Environmental Assessment on The Greek Forest Fire Problematic.

September 2007 A practical Look at Quantum GIS

• coordinated by Gary Lee Watry, Center For Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies

Winter Semester 2002/03 Applied Statistics

• e-learning course based on ILIAS, University of Freiburg, Germany,

Internships

Oct 2007-Feb 2008 UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva, Switzerland

• Burned area mapping using free & open source geospatial applications

Mar 2004-Jul 2004 GeoInfo–Applied Research & Studies, Thessaloniki, Greece

• GIS training, participating in running projects, partially elaborated the diploma thesis

Aug 2003 Forestry Service in Kalabaka, Prefecture of Trikala, Greece

Honors

Jul 2008 Significant contribution to the ISPRS Student Consortium Newsletter

• International Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing

Scholarships

Oct 2005-Oct 2009 Scholarship awarded from the Sofia Chlorou Bequest of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece

References

Dr. Pascal Peduzzi, UNEP/GRID-Geneva pascal.peduzzi@unepgrid.ch

Dr. Emanuele Lugato, JRC, European Commission Emanuele.Lugato@ec.europa.eu

Prof. Demetris Stathakis, University of Thessaly dstath@uth.gr

Talks

May 3rd, 2014 FOSSCOMM2014, Lamia, Greece Oral presentation about processing QuickBird2 imagery using GRASS-GIS in greek: Επεξεργασία δορυφορικών εικόνων υψηλής ανάλυσης με το GRASS-GIS, παράδειγμα ανάλυσης δεδομένων του δορυφόρου QuickBird2,

March 4th, 2014 VHDL laboratory, ECE, GRASS-GIS & Workshop (Processing High Resolution Satellite Imagery with GRASS-GIS, An Example Using QuickBird2 Imagery), Kurukshetra University, India

February 21st, 2014 TERI University, Talk about GRASS-GIS, Delhi, India

May 2012 HellasGI’s 7th conference, Oral presentation of dissertation (Alexandris2011) in greek (PDFfile)

June 17-19, 2011 1st Hellenic GRASS & GFOSS User’s Meeting, Talk about
GRASS-GIS, Moni Paou, Argalasti, Pilio, Volos, Greece

November 2010 1st GeoDataCamp organised by geodata.gov.gr volunteers & ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ (the Greek FS/OSS) community members

• Talk on burned area mapping using public domain data and GFOSS
• One-on-One example based demonstration of GRASS-GIS NTUA, Athens, Greece

June 15h, 2009 29th EARSeL Symposium, Oral presentation Estimating the Forest Fire Damage in Peloponnese (Greece, 2007) using MODIS products, Chania, Crete, Greece

Extracurricular

Participation in GRASS-GIS’ community sprints

• Bonn 2018,
• Bonn 2016,
• Genova 2013,
• Prague 2012

May 2012 Support translation of the official OSGeo website in Greek

12 & 13 May 2012 Attended the 5th greek FOSSCOMM

2008 - Present End-user contributions in Open Source Projects

• GRASS-GIS
  • Official GRASS-GIS site: http://grass.osgeo.org/
  • GRASS GIS Tracker and Wiki: http://trac.osgeo.org/grass
  • GRASS GIS Users Wiki: http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Main_Page
  • “grass-user” mailing list: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-user/
  • “grass-dev” mailing list: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-user/
• Quantum-GIS
  • Designed and contributed some north arrows for QGIS
  • Archive of the “qgis-user” mailing list: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-user/
• Tutorials using GRASS-GIS
  • Principal Components Analysis in GRASS-GIS’ wiki
  • Using ASTER GDEM tiles with GRASS-GIS: ASTER topography
  • CORINE Land Cover:
  • Instructions on the processing of CORINE land cover at GRASS-GIS’ wiki: Processing the “vector version of the CORINE land cover 2000” with GRASS-GIS
  • Using the CORINE2000 land cover/ land use data base with GRASS-GIS under Ubuntu-linux 8.04
  • Αναπαραγωγή του χάρτη CORINE με το GRASS-GIS, 2η δημοσίευση, Φεβρουάριος 2009: Reproduction of the CORINE land cover/ use map using GRASS-GIS [in Greek]

June 2008 Interview in the magazine Greek Linux Format (current Linux Inside)

• Burned area mapping using free open source software, Issue 22, June-August 2008, (accessed on October 25, 2011)

Winter 2001 - Summer 2004 Wildlife Museum Guide

• Institute for Wildlife & Wild management, Forestry Faculty, Aristotle University in Thessaloniki

August 1997 Coordinator of a voluntary work group of WWF-Hellas, opening a mountainous ecotouristic path, Lefkimi, Evros, Greece

Publications

Peer reviewed

Alexandris, Nikos, Sandeep Gupta, and Nikos Koutsias. 2017.
“Remote sensing of burned areas via PCA, Part 1; centering, scaling and EVD vs SVD.”
Open Geospatial Data, Software and Standards 2, no. 1 (July): 17.
doi: 10.1186/s40965-017-0028-1.

Alexandris, Nikos, Nikos Koutsias, and Sandeep Gupta. 2017.
“Remote sensing of burned areas via PCA. Part 2: SVD-based PCA using MODIS and Landsat data.”
Open Geospatial Data, Software and Standards (August).
doi: 10.1186/s40965-017-0029-0.

Giuliani, Gregory, Hy Dao, Andrea De Bono, Bruno Chatenoux, Karin Allenbach, Pierric De Laborie, Denisa Rodila, Nikos Alexandris, and Pascal Peduzzi. 2017. “Live Monitoring of Earth Surface (LiMES): A framework for monitoring environmental changes from Earth Observations.”
Big Remotely Sensed Data: tools, applications and experiences, Remote Sensing of Environment 202:222–233.
doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2017.05.040.

Various

Some original links may be broken

Alexandris, Nikos. 2011. “Burned area mapping via non-centered SVD-based Principal Components Analysis using public domain data & free open source software.” Online at http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/8399 (accessed January 2, 2012). Dissertation, Faculty of Forest & Environmental Sciences Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.

Alexandris, Nikos, Bruno Chatenoux, Laura Lopez Torres, and Pascal Peduzzi. 2013. Monitoring The Restoration of Mangrove Ecosystems from Space. Technical report. UNEP/GRID-Geneva Global Change & Vulnerability Unit 11, ch. Des Anémones 1219 Châtelaine Switzerland: UNEP/GRID-Geneva, December. http://www.unep.org/pdf/Monitoring_the_Restoration_of_Mangroves.pdf.

Alexandris, Nikos, and Patrick Pyttel. 2012. “Mapping Disturbed Areas in Aged Coppice on Steep Slopes along Rhine & Moselle (Rheinland-Pfalz), A Visual Interpretation Approach based on True Colour Orthophotos” [in English]. Centre for Geospatial Science, University of Nottingham; Mimas Centre of Excellence, University of Manchester. October. http://elogeo.nottingham.ac.uk/xmlui.

ISPRS-SC. 2008. Newsletter. Online. International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Student Consortium. http://www.isprs-sc.org/newsletters.

Kalamaras, Dimitris. 2008. Interview in the magazine Greek Linux Format (current Linux Inside) concerning burned area mapping using free open source software, (in Greek): Ο δασολόγος Νίκος Αλεξανδρής εξηγεί πως μπορεί να βοηθήσει το Linux και το ελεύθερο λογισμικό στην χαρτογράφηση των καμένων δασών. LINUX FORMAT 22 (ΙΟΥΛΙΟΣ–ΑΥΓΟΥΣΤΟΣ) [in Greek]. Edited by Dimitris Kalamaras. Magazine. Linux Inside, a greek magazine about Linux (former Greek Linux Format), Greece, May. Accessed through http://web.archive.org on October 25, 2011.

Conferences

2006 Alexandris, Nikos. 2006. GMES Land Monitoring Core Service in Mediterranean Environments. Exhibited during the 3rd geoland OpenDay. Poster about Interoperable Nomenclature (Fast Track Service and CORINE), February. http://web.archive.org/web/20091026124742/http://www.gmes-geoland.info/events/presentations.php?occ_id=43.

geoland. 2006a. Index of geoland Events. Online. http://web.archive.org/web/20100510202737/http://www.gmes-geoland.info/events/index.php.

geoland. 2006b. List of participants at the 3rd geoland OpenDay. Online. 3rd geoland OpenDay, Vienna, Austria, February. http://web.archive.org/web/20091025004637/http://www.gmes-geoland.info/events/download/ListOfParticipants.pdf.

geoland. 2006c. Overview of poster exhibition at the 3rd geoland OpenDay. Online. 3rd geoland OpenDay, Poster Exhibition, Vienna, Austria, February. http://web.archive.org/web/20081121035536/http://www.gmes-geoland.info/events/download/Overview_PosterExhibition.pdf.

2007 Samaras, Dimitris, Nikos Alexandris, Fotis Xystrakis, and Georgios Mouflis. 2007. “Climatic classification of central Sterea Hellas with the use of GIS [in Greek].” In Proceedings of the 4 th panhellenic congress ”modern tendencies in ecological research”, 156–157. Volos, Greece, October.

2009 Alexandris, Nikos, and Nikos Koutsias. 2009. “Estimating the Forest Fire Damage in Peloponnese (Greece, 2007) using MODIS products.” In 29th EARSeL Symposium, Symposium Programme and Abstract Book, edited by Ioannis Manakos, Chariton Kalaitzidis, Dina Petraki, and Nikos Psyllakis, 4. Oral presentation. MAICh Conference Center, Chania, Crete - Greece: MAICh, October. http://earsel29.maich.gr/docs/EARSeL_programme_abstract_book.pdf.

Memberships

OSGeo Charter Member (see also OSGeo Wiki)

Updated : September 2025