Nikos Alexandris

Scientific Software Engineer | Geomatics | Remote Sensing

Fluent in 🇬🇧 English, 🇩🇪 German, 🇬🇷 Greek
Working level 🇫🇷 French (B2), 🇮🇹 Italian (autodidatta)
Python scientific stack expert for environmental modeling

nikosalexandris@duck.com  


Updated : March 2026 | Available immediately

Profile

Scientific Software Engineer and Tech Lead building data-intensive, scalable applications for complex time-series analysis, climate and photovoltaics. Turning complex algorithms into production-grade systems with robust validation concepts. Strong focus on modular architectures (backends, APIs, CLIs), clean code, and automated testing. Extensive experience in Python (scientific stack), anomaly detection, Linux power-user, and parallel processing on HTC/HPC systems. Background in GIS/Remote Sensing applied to European public-sector and UN projects. Currently expanding expertise in Deep Learning (CNNs/RNNs/Transformers) for predictive modeling.

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

26.08.24-23.09.24 Using CMSAF SARAH-3 data in PVGIS
Visiting Scientist, DWD (German Weather Service)

Oct 2019-Sep 2021 Internal exploratory research projects on land surface temperature
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, UNEP/GRID-Geneva

Consultancies (selection)

2013–2015 Remote sensing & GIS (UNEP/GRID, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Epsilon International)
Details and references available on request

Earlier experience

2005–2009 Mapping disturbed areas (Uni-Freiburg), Rapid Fire Area Mapping workshop (SNV), GIS & Remote Sensing (Infoterra GmbH)

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

Sep 1999-Jul 2004

Skills

Programming

Machine Learning

OSes / DevOps

Backend / Web

GIS & Remote Sensing

Typography & Web

Domain expertise

 

Further Training (selection)

Jan 2026-present

Deep Learning Specialization (Andrew Ng, DeepLearning.AI / Coursera)
Neural networks, CNNs/RNNs, transformers, TensorFlow for sequence/image data.

Sep 2014-Jan 2018 Fundamentals of Computing specialization at Coursera

Internships, Honors, Scholarships

Oct 2007-Feb 2008 Internship in UNEPGRID-Geneva, Switzerland. Burned area mapping using free & open source geospatial applications

Jul 2008 Significant contribution to the ISPRS Student Consortium Newsletter

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, Conferences (selection)

September 2025 Nikos Alexandris, Alexandros Falangas, Olympia Gounari, Alba Santos Rodrigues. PVGIS 6: a future-proof prototype open-source software for photovoltaics. Poster. EU PVSEC 2025, Exhibition. Bilbao, Spain.

January 2025 Nikos Alexandris, “SARAH data in PVGIS: past, present & future”. Oral presentation. CM SAF User Workshop 2025. Bonn, Germany.

6 November 2024 Nikos Alexandris, PVGIS 6, Presentation at the Digital Stakeholder Forum

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

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

Full list on request

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

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. https://unepgrid.ch/storage/app/media/legacy/50/Monitoring_the_Restoration_of_Mangroves.pdf

Extracurricular, Memberships

Participation in GRASS-GIS’ community sprints Bonn 2018, Bonn 2016, Genova 2013, Prague 2012

OSGeo Charter Member (see also OSGeo Wiki)