Research Director
Vassilis Amiridis (VA) was born in Göteborg, Sweden, in 1971. He received his B.Sc. in Physics, M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences and Ph.D. in Atmospheric Physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece in 1998, 2000 and 2006, respectively. Since 2006, VA is a Researcher of the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing (IAASARS) of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA) in Greece.
He is working on climate research and he focuses on the impact of atmospheric aerosols and clouds on radiation and extreme weather. His research is mainly based on advanced ground-based and space-borne remote sensing observations (passive and active remote sensing techniques) and theoretical models.
VA has participated in 32 research projects and experimental campaigns, in 6 of which as coordinator and 4 as principal investigator for IAASARS/NOA. He has more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and his work received more than 1900 citations from third-party (h-index = 28, source: ISI Web of Knowledge). Moreover, VA participated in numerous conferences, co-chaired 8 of them and invited to present his work 7 times. VA is leading the ReACT Atmospheric Remote Sensing group in IAASARS/NOA. He is a member of the editorial board of EGU’s Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Journal (Copernicus Publications, Impact Factor = 3.2) and he is active reviewer in ~25 scientific Journals in his field.
VA is responsible for the operation and data exploitation of the 24/7 PollyXT sophisticated lidar system, member of the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET). He is also the PI of the Aerosol Remote Sensing Station (ARSS) of IAASARS/NOA in Athens (NASA’s AERONET site) and he is in charge of the operations for the cal/val program of ESA for ADM-Aeolus and EarthCARE in Greece, employing the official ESA ground-based mobile lidar system which is under development by IAASARS/NOA. His lidar-related activities have been acknowledged by the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET), which has elected VA as a council member for the periods 2012-2016 and 2016-2020. Moreover, VA acted as the Greek National Delegate for the GMES/COPERNICUS Committee for the period 2014-2017 and National Representative in Interim ACTRIS council, as well as member of the General Assembly of the Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation (ELIDEK). In 2016, VA received the ERC Consolidator Grant for establishing high level atmospheric research in the geophysical observatory of Antikythera, a unique infrastructure that is developed to study desert dust dynamics, transport and interaction with radiation.