Vasileios is a Lecturer in Geotechnics at the School of Natural and Built Environment. He holds a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from Newcastle University, UK, as well as an MSc and an MEng in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. His research is focused on particulate micromechanics, exploring the micro-to-macro behaviour of granular systems through numerical modelling and digital imaging. Vasileios is an avid advocate of open-source code development, having authored two open-source codes: SHAPE, designed for the shape characterisation of three-dimensional particles, and CLUMP, designed for the generation of multi-sphere particles. He is one of the active developers of YADE, one of the most widely used open-source platforms employing the Discrete Element Method (DEM). He has co-developed novel imaging instruments for particle characterisation purposes, within the EPSRC IAA OCULAR project.

Vasileios' research interests span a range of topics involving the micro-to-macro study of particulate materials, including:

• Discrete Element Modelling of granular materials using multi-sphere, polyhedral and potential particles
• Effects of particle-shape on the mechanical response of granular systems
• Image-informed numerical modelling for materials with irregular grains
• Creating seamless algorithmic workflows between digital imaging and numerical modelling
• Understanding the meso and macro response of soils using observations from the micro-scale
• Advanced constitutive relationships of contact laws for rough surfaces, irregular contact regions, friction
• Development of novel formulations to characterise particle shape
• Open-source code development for particle imaging and modelling purposes

Vasileios holds a Diploma in Civil Engineering (5-year degree equivalent to MEng), conferred by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece (2014). During the last four semesters of his studies he specialised in Structural Engineering and undertook a thesis on the "Effect of Near-Fault Directivity on the Inelastic Response of RC Frames", which he completed in the Laboratory for Earthquake Engineering of NTUA.

Subsequently, he earned a Master of Science Degree (MSc) in the Analysis and Design of Structures from NTUA (2016), specialising in the Structural and Geotechnical aspects concerning the analysis and retrofitting of existing structures and the design of new, focusing especially on seismic conditions. For his thesis, he carried out an "Investigation of the Near-Fault Directivity Pulses’ Effect on the Inelastic Behavior of a Curved RC Bridge", which he completed in the Laboratory for Earthquake Engineering of NTUA.

Vasileios completed his doctoral studies at the School of Engineering of Newcastle University (2021), and produced a thesis entitled "Image-informed numerical modelling of particulate systems with irregular grains".

He held a Post-doctoral Research position as PDRA in Particle Imaging at Newcastle University, UK (2021-2022) where he worked on the design of OCULAR, a prototype instrument for three-dimensional dynamic image analysis of particles. Subsequently, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow on Granular Metamaterials at the Institute for Multiscale Simulation of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, DE (2022-2023) where he explored the mechanical properties of granular mechanical metamaterials.

CIV1018 - Construction Materials

CIV1118 - Construction Materials (Module Coordinator)

CIV2017 - Geotechnics 2

CIV3006 - Project 3