Aristides Moustakas

University of Jena

The main objective of my PhD is to examine long-term climate and vegetation change of arid savannas mainly in Africa and develop models for future scenarios and management. The model aim is to improve our understanding of the ecology of savannas based on the hierarchical patch dynamics paradigm. Savannas are patchy and the spatiotemporal dynamics of the patchiness might be a key to understanding tree-grass coexistence in savannas. The main modelling tool that I apply are grid-based automata.

Place of birth: Athens, Greece.

Date of birth: 20 April 1976

Nationality: Greek

Languages: Greek (native), English (excellent, TOEFL 620/660, First Certificate

in English), Italian (excellent, Diploma di lingua e cultura Italiana), Spanish (good),

German (average, Grundstuffe-Goethe Institut).

Dornburgerstrasse 159

07743 Jena

Germany

Office phone: +49 3641 949453

Fax: +49 3641 949402

Mobile phone: +30 6948533674

e-mail: ;

Education

Secondary School (Gymnasium and Lyceum) Italian School of Athens, 1988-1994.

Technical University of Crete, Diploma in Industrial Engineering and Management, 1994-2000.

University of Amsterdam, Department of Computer Science, attended and completed the first year of a two year Master program in Computational Sciences, 2000-2001. Interrupted for family reasons.

Technical University of Crete, MSc. in Environmental Engineering, October 2001-April 2003.

Friedrich Schiller University, Department of Biology, PhD in long-term vegetation and climate modelling of semi-arid savannas, September 2003-today. (Expected date of graduation September 2006). The main object of my PhD is to examine long-term climate and vegetation change of arid savannas mainly in Africa and develop models for future scenarios and management. September 2003 – today.

Working experience

Technical University of Crete, Laboratory of Expert Systems, March -June 1998

Technical University of Crete, Research Group in Artificial Intelligence, March -June 1998

Technical University of Crete, Teaching Assistant in the Laboratory of Ecology (Population estimation, analysis of ecological data using univariate and multivariate techniques), March – September 2002

Technical University of Crete, Teaching Assistant at the course “Environmental Impact Assessment”, October 2002 – February 2003

Technical University of Crete, Teaching Assistant in the Laboratory of Ecology (Population estimation, analysis of ecological data using univariate and multivariate techniques), March – September 2003

Scientific collaborator in IPIMAR (Portuguese Institute for Marine Research and Fisheries). The main object was to model the interaction between fish and fishers. The main study area was the North Sea. My work was part of the EFEP (European Fisheries Ecosystem Plan) a European Union research project. The model development was mainly achieved in collaboration with Dr. William Silvert from IPIMAR and Apostolos Dimitromanolakis from the University of Toronto, Canada. May - August 2003

Scholarships received

Greek State Foundation for Scholarships (I.K.Y) as the candidate with the second highest average in the exams hold to enter the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management in the Technical University of Crete. (1994)

Erasmus Scholarship (E.U), Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands, August 1996-December 1996

Technical University of Crete, Department of Environmental Engineering, as the candidate with the highest graduate average joining the MSc program. (2001)

German Research Foundation (DFG). PhD scholarship as scientific collaborator. September 2003-today.

Publications

Moustakas, A. (2000), Cellular Automata and Complexity. An Application of a Cellular Automaton model in species spatial competition. Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece. (in Greek)

Moustakas, A. European Fisheries Ecosystem Plan (EFEP). (2003) European Union Report. Work package 5, Annex 4: Modelling Fisheries with Cellular Automata. Available on the web at: www.efep.org

Meyer, K.M., Ward, D., Moustakas, A., Wiegand, K. (2005). Big is not better: Small Acacia mellifera shrubs are more vital after fire. African Journal of Ecology, 43:2, 131-137.

Moustakas, A. and Karakassis, Y (2005). How diverse is Aquatic Biodiversity
research? Aquatic Ecology 39:367–375.

Moustakas, A., Silvert, W. and Dimitromanolakis, A. (in press). A spatially
explicit learning model of migratory fish and fishers for evaluation of closed
areas. Ecological Modelling.

Moustakas, A., Guenther, M., Wiegand, K., Mueller, K-H., Ward, D., Meyer, K.M. and Jeltsch, F. (in review). Journal of Vegetation Science. Size-class distribution of Acacia erioloba mortality: the middle class shall die!

Notes Written

Moustakas A. and Karakassis I. Univariate and Multivariate Ecosystem Analysis, Technical University of Crete, Laboratory of Ecology, Chania, Greece, 2002.(in Greek)

Programming Languages

C

C++

Fortran

Software Knowledge

Microsoft office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

SPSS (Statistics package)

SPlus (Statistics package)

Sigma Plot (Graphs package)

Map Info (GIS package)

Primer (Population data analyses package)

Extra Activities

Exchange student under the Erasmus European Exchange Program in the Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands (August – December 1996).

Participation in the summer school “Ecology and Technology” of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, 11-26 September 1997.

Participation in the European Programming Contest for Mathematical Programming and Algorithms (organized by ACM) with the Greek university team, Bucharest, Romania, October 1999 (Honorable Mention).

Field work, in the savanna near Kimberley, South Africa, collecting data for modelling, in collaboration with the Conservation Ecology research group of Stellenbosch University, South Africa. 15 January-14 February 2004.

Guest scientist in the Department of Conservation Ecology, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. The aim of the visit was to get data and information on climate and vegetation of African Savannas. 14 February - 14 April 2004.

Guest scientist in the Department of Nuclear Physics, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. The aim of the visit was to develop a spatially explicit model on long-term vegetation and climate change of African Savannas, in collaboration with Konstantinos Sakkos. 2 June – 1 July 2004.

Guest scientist in the Department of Botany, University of Kwa Zulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The aim of the visit was to get information on African plants. 1 April – 24 April 2005.

Other activities

Sailing (Offshore sailing diploma, Chania, Crete, Greece, 1996)

Principal organizer of a European Sailing Week with the European Student Organization B.E.S.T (Board of European Students of Technology), Chania, Crete, Greece, March 1998, with participants from 11 European countries.

Participation in a cultural exchange of the Technical University of Crete with the Technical University of Luleo, Sweden, March 1999.

Principal organizer of a European Sailing Week with the European Student Organization B.E.S.T (Board of European Students of Technology), Chania, Crete, Greece, May 2000, with participants from 14 European countries.

Hobbies

football

sailing

swimming

literature reading and essay writing

traveling

mountain hiking

philosophy

free camping

red wine, single malt whiskey.