[Meet our Faculty] EURECOM welcomes Fotios Stavrou as a new Assistant Professor in the Communication Systems department

Q. Could you describe briefly your academic trajectory so far?

FS. Ι graduated from the electrical engineering department at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2008, majoring in communication systems. In 2016, I earned my PhD at the University of Cyprus, on information theory and stochastic optimal control. Based on these broad tools, I was able to pursue my postdoc at Aalborg University in Denmark, where I started working on network control systems. This effort became more intensive when in 2017, I accepted a research position at KTH in Sweden, where I was able to do extensive research on the fundamental understanding and synthesis of network control systems under communication constraints.

Now, this area is actually a very hot topic, in what we call cyber-physical systems. Since 2021, I was hired as a Senior researcher at EURECOM, working on an ERC Consolidator grant related to semantically oriented communications. As from September 2022, I was promoted to an Assistant professor at the Department of Communication Systems at EURECOM.

Q. What made you choose working at EURECOM?

FS. First of all, EURECOM is a renowned institute worldwide, in terms of its research output in communication and information technologies.

Also, I was very keen to live in the French Riviera, because it resembles the conditions I had back home in Cyprus, especially regarding the way we perceive life in general.

Q. What is the expertise you bring to the Communication Systems department?

FS. Within the Communication Systems department, I work with the Foundation & Algorithms group, focusing mostly on fundamental research in communication and information theory, as well as networking. My research interests are related to information theory, stochastic control optimisation, game theory and more recently reinforcement learning for next generation communication networks. What I bring to the table as a novel expertise at EURECOM is tools from control theory.

In terms of collaboration, I am currently working with Marios Kountouris, under an ERC grant. I also think there is a room for collaboration with people working on intelligent transportation systems.

Outside EURECOM, I collaborate with EPFL, as well as the University of Ankara, Texas University at Austin, KTH and Aalborg University.

Q. What are your future goals and your message as a new Assistant Professor at EURECOM?

FS. I think this question is challenging! In a 5-year future horizon plan, I would like to self-develop and evolve in various skills that I think I have to improve. For example, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to cultivate my teaching skills, acquiring knowledge on teaching methods.

Since I am in the process of building my own group, I would also like to deepen my mentoring skills, stimulating an environment that would be beneficial for the personal and professional development of my students.

My personal long term goal is to become the focal point of control and information theory in France. I am up for this challenging task!