NEANIAS inside. A chat with our Project Coordinator.

Mema Roussopoulos is Project Coordinator for NEANIAS Project. She gives us her view about the project and the challenges it faces, and comments with us on various topics regarding science, research, society, actuality, and even classical history.

  • Hello Mema, firstly, could you give us a brief introduction about you? 

I have recently been promoted to Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. I received my PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. Before my current position, I was an Assistant Professor of Computer Science on the Gordon McKay Endowment at Harvard University in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and a faculty member at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Crete and an Associated Researcher at the Institute of Computer Science at FORTH. I am excited to be Project Coordinator for the NEANIAS Project!

  • What’s your vision regarding NEANIAS? What was the main need detected? How we came up with the idea?

NEANIAS fills an interesting niche in the envisioned EOSC landscape, one targeting three important thematic sectors: those of underwater, atmospheric and space research. The communities that make up each of these three sectors are large and diverse, ranging from scientists, academics and researchers to public service providers, businesses and citizens. NEANIAS will 1) address community-specific needs for building innovative services for each of the thematic services, 2) on board these communities to the Open Science, EOSC, and interdisciplinary research era, 3) nurture new business opportunities that arise as a result of having these thematic services in place, and in essence contribute to powering-up the EOSC.

  • How was the name NEANIAS created? Is it a pun in Greek?

NEANIAS means “young man” dating back from Ancient Greece. A “NEANIAS” represents the heroic characteristic of youth and symbolizes momentum and progress, but also rapidness. One can view the EOSC as a young person that is coming of age and the NEANIAS Project as an excellent opportunity to contribute towards diversifying, enriching and strengthening the “coming of age” EOSC ecosystem.

  • What’s the connection between fields as diverse as Space, Underwater and Atmospheric, the 3 thematic sectors of NEANIAS?

We are building three innovative services for each thematic area. For the underwater research sector, the services include support for bathymetry mapping, seafloor image mosaicking, and seabed classification. For the atmospheric sector, the services include support for monitoring greenhouse gas flux density, estimating concentration of gas and particulates in tectonic/ volcanic regions, and measuring air quality. For the space research sector, the services include support for integrating visualization with common scientific workflows (e.g., to map and mosaic sky images) and integrating machine-learning techniques for automatic detection of structures in large scale multi-dimensional maps. 

The thematic services we are building in NEANIAS are heavily data driven and have a number of commonalities in the analytical functionalities they exhibit. A key activity of NEANIAS is to identify these commonalities and provide support for them in the form of re-usable “core services” that can be used by the thematic services as well as form the basis for re-use by future services that require similar data-driven functionality.

  • May have NEANIAS any application in other fields, Health for instance?

Indeed. For example, as I mentioned in the atmospheric sector, we are building a service that monitors air quality. The ability to perform proper air quality monitoring is something that has direct impact on the health and quality of life of people, particularly those living in urban areas.

  • What are the main additional values of NEANIAS to society, beyond the technology?

The added value and benefits of the NEANIAS project are manifold beyond the technology. From a research and knowledge perspective the scientific advancements made by building on the services we offer will follow Open Science principles, enabling accessibility and reusability to future scientists and researchers. Moreover, many of the thematic services will help improve citizens’ quality of life by providing benefits in areas such as health, education, urban planning, and environment, to name a few.

A key vehicle for providing such impactful benefits will be to enable business opportunities in each of the thematic sectors. I will list three examples here. In the underwater sector, if we can perform seabed classification successfully, then this would be of great interest to energy power companies that need to lay down power cables on the seafloor. In the atmospheric sector, if we can perform air quality monitoring efficiently, then this is of interest to urban planners scheduling events in a large city during tourist season, agronomists who study agriculture productivity, and even to health care providers who need to apply preventative measures in hospitals to respond to citizens’ needs. Finally, in the space sector, if we can provide the missing tools for efficient and scalable visual discovery and virtual reality, then this would be of great interest to national space agencies, space museums, and planetariums for educational purposes.

  • After 9 months of NEANIAS life, what is your view about the consortium?

The consortium is indeed very diverse, experienced and well-balanced for the objectives of the Project. We have particularly collegial relationships and collaboration amongst partners, for which we are very pleased!

  • What’s your view about scientific research in Europe regarding other areas in the world?

I believe Europe needs to continue making significant bold steps toward funding both pure and applied research in order to be able to compete with other parts of the world (e.g., USA, Japan, China, etc.) which are leading in this regard.

  • At NEANIAS, the management team and many tasks are led by women. Do you think that the representation of women in the world of science and research is sufficiently achieved?

Not yet, but I am optimistic that society will achieve balance in representation, sooner rather than later!!

  • What do your students think about NEANIAS?

As Computer Scientists, my students and colleagues are excited to engage and work with scientists from a diverse set of fields using state-of-the-art technologies to produce these impactful and innovative services.

  • The Coronavirus health crisis began almost at the same time as NEANIAS was born. What has been your main concern and how have you managed to solve it?

The main concern with regards to coordinating the Project was the fact that we are unable to perform in-person, face-to-face meetings which is often a crucial way to make progress and build comradery. Fortunately, our consortium has been able to make sufficient progress via extensive use of virtual/online meetings and collaboration tools. The Coronavirus crisis has also contributed to the collegial atmosphere amongst partners, as we all know and understand the struggle and pressure many face while trying to work at home during this time of uncertainty.

  • How do you see the NEANIAS results at long term? (for instance, in 5 years)

Five years from now, I will be very excited to see the services we are building and deploying being used both in a research capacity but also in a way that has direct impact on society in terms of quality of life, innovation and entrepreneurship, and governance.

  • Lastly, any wish for the next 6 months?

I look forward to seeing the first release of the thematic and core services in the coming weeks and months and I am also particularly excited about the fact that we are engaging with user communities as we move toward deployment and eventual integration in EOSC!!

Thanks Mema for this conversation. We hope it will help our audience to know more about the project, the team and our work from different perspectives.

EU Flag  NEANIAS is a Research and Innovation Action funded by European Union under Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme via grant agreement No.863448.