A PhD researcher with an eye for identifying the synergies that connect industry and academia, Georgios Papanikolaou comes to INFANT to work on an SFI Frontiers for the Future project to develop new AI models to predict seizures in the neonatal brain.
Working under the supervision of Professor Geraldine Boylan, Professor Liam Marnane and Professor Sebastian Wieczorek, Georgios is looking to combine mathematical systems, such as machine learning, system and control theory and tipping point theory, with real seizure data to develop models to foresee and identify the onset of seizures and develop strategies to reduce them in premature babies.
We already have programmes that can detect seizures, but what we want to do is to build a model that can predict them.
We want to identify specific readings from EEG and ECG signals so that we’re able to recognise the hallmarks of a seizure so that we can create an algorithm that can accurately identify and predict them.
Our first step is to precisely map a seizure and create a model that can identify one, then we’ll start working backwards to try and identify key indicators.
If we can do that, then we can start building a machine learning model.
Georgios will lean on his experience of applying mathematical theory across diverse industries during the project.
After graduating from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with an MSc in Theoretical Computer Science and System and Control Theory, Georgios worked as a researcher with United Technologies Research Centre in Cork.
There, he worked on a project linked to the aerospace industry, focussing primarily on requirement formalisation so that data from key processes could be tested and maintained.
The programme that Georgios and his colleagues developed earned them a publication titled “ReForm: A Tool for Rapid Requirements Formalization”.
I’m really interested in applying knowledge across multiple industries and disciplines.
That’s what really excited me about this project. I understood how the knowledge that I had developed at United Technologies Research Centre could be applied in INFANT.
You can see how mathematical theories can be applied across multiple fields. Watching these ideas flow from one industry to the next is fascinating and the results only add to our knowledge.
In this sense, Georgios will not just contribute knowledge to INFANT, he also brings a passion for developing tangible solutions to research problems, enabling him to overcome any problems or challenges that he may encounter.
