Biography

Prof. Alex. Papayannis (Dipl. Ing., DEA, Ph.D.) is the Director of the Laboratory of Optoelectronics, Lasers and Applications (http://www.physics.ntua.gr/~lola/pages/en.html) and Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Laser Technology and Laser Remote Sensing at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He received his DEA and Ph.D. Diplomas from the Université Paris 7, working at the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) du CNRS/Université Paris 6. He is affiliated to the Laboratory of Atmospheric Processes and their Impacts (LAPI) at EPFL.

He is a LiDAR expert (more than 35 years) in vertical profiling of atmospheric parameters, aerosols, bio-aerosols, clouds and gases (O3, H2O, glyoxal) in the troposphere, in combination with sun photometry, satellite data, in situ aerosol measurements and meteorological modelling. Being member of the 1st Tropospheric Ozone Network (TOR/TESLAS/EUREKA Projects) in Europe, he created, on 1996, the 1st European lidar Network (France, Switzerland, UK, Germany, Italy, Greece, Portugal). Soon after, he initiated the creation of several lidar groups in Greece, Brazil, Romania, China, etc., as well as of the RAYMETRICS lidar company (www.raymetrics.com), which is the first lidar company in the world with customers in throughout Europe, Americas, Asia and Africa. He is a founding member of the European lidar Network (EARLINET) (www.earlinet.org), which has been in operation since 2000. The NTUA lidar station serves as a calibration station of the CNES/NASA space lidar mission CALIPSO (https://www-calipso.larc.nasa.gov/) and the European Space Agency (ESA) space lidar mission AEOLUS (https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/Aeolus/Introducing_Aeolus). 

His research focuses on the intercontinental transport of ozone, desert dust and biomass burning and continental aerosols and on their impact on clouds, climate, air quality and health. As his 1st Marie Curie ITN Grant (http://itars.uni-koeln.de/static/) combined the synergy of lidars, radars and micro-wave profiling systems to study of the aerosol-clouds interactions, his research is also focusing on the cloud formation processes based on such synergies. In recent years, his emphasis is also put on the typing and profiling of bio-aerosols using novel prototype lidar systems he designed and developed at NTUA.

He is member (2008-2015) and President (2015-2023) of the International Coordination Group for Laser Atmospheric Studies (ICLAS) (http://iclas-ilrc.org/). He has served as Co-chair and Member of the Scientific Committee of more than 26 International Conferences, related to lidar atmospheric/meteorological applications. He has participated in 67 research projects (EU, ESA, NASA, CNRS, INOE-Romania, IPEN-Brazil, and Greek national funds) and has published 132 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 6 Book chapters and 250 papers in peer-reviewed International Conferences Proceedings. He has received more than 8.100 citations (h-index 46) in Google Scholar. He has supervised more 15 Ph.D. students at NTUA and 60 M.Sc. Diploma Theses.