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Alexandra Zisimopoulou

About Me

I am a physicist with a background in theoretical physics and professional experience in software engineering. I hold a Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Copenhagen, where my research focused on the CMB on large angular scales.

My research experience includes theoretical modelling, numerical methods, and scientific computing. I have worked with first-principles simulations using Quantum ESPRESSO and Yambo, and have developed practical experience with machine learning through independent projects in natural language processing and computer vision.

After my studies, I worked as a software engineer, developing and maintaining large-scale software systems. This experience strengthened my programming, problem-solving, and computational skills, and gave me experience working with complex systems and large-scale structured data.

I am now interested in returning to research and applying this combination of physics, computational methods, and software engineering to scientific problems in astrophysics.

Education

University of Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute

Aug 2018 - Jul 2020

Master of Science in Physics

Thesis Tile: The CMB on large angular scales

University of Crete, Department of Physics

Sept 2012 - Jul 2018

Bachelor of Science in Physics

Thesis Title: Perfect Transmission in Non-Hermitian Scattering Media

Research

Master's Thesis

The CMB on Large Angular Scales

Investigated the dipolar power asymmetry of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) using Planck observations. Combined existing theoretical models, derived the corresponding dipole amplitude, and constrained the model using observational data.

View thesis

Bachelor's Thesis

Perfect Transmission in Non-Hermitian Scattering Media

Investigated wave propagation and perfect transmission in non-Hermitian scattering media using analytical and numerical methods in MATLAB.

View thesis

Research

Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH)

Performed first-principles Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations using Quantum ESPRESSO and Yambo to investigate the optical, electronic, and thermodynamic properties of materials under ultrafast laser excitation.

Conducted convergence testing, band-structure, and density-of-states calculations for materials including silicon and nickel. Used Python for computational post-processing, analysis, and visualization.

Experience

Sword Group

Software Engineer

Project: eu-LISA Interoperability Platform — an EU agency responsible for large-scale IT systems supporting border control, visa management, and asylum processes.

  • Develop and maintain Java/Spring Boot applications within a large-scale distributed system.
  • Analyse and debug a complex codebase to identify and resolve data consistency issues between systems.
  • Design, implement, and validate solutions under strict technical and functional requirements.
  • Work with gRPC, PostgreSQL, Jenkins, OpenShift, and Git.
  • Collaborate in an international Agile team through code reviews and technical discussions.

PMM Group

Software Engineer

Developed and maintained software for a large-scale e-commerce platform processing millions of orders annually.

  • Developed backend applications using Java, Spring Boot, and the ATG framework.
  • Contributed to the migration from a monolithic architecture to microservices using Spring Boot, Apache Kafka, and MongoDB.
  • Developed and maintained backend services and REST APIs, focusing on reliability, scalability, and performance.
  • Worked with Oracle SQL and MongoDB and contributed to automated testing and CI/CD workflows.
  • Collaborated within a large software engineering team using Git and code-review practices.

Personal Projects

Scientific Text Classification — NLP

Developed and evaluated deep learning models for classifying scientific text using the PubMed 200k RCT dataset. Explored different text representations and model architectures, including pretrained embeddings, character-level representations, and hybrid approaches.

View on GitHub

Image Classification — Computer Vision

Developed and fine-tuned deep learning models for image classification using the Food101 dataset. Worked with data preprocessing, model training, transfer learning, evaluation, and visualization using TensorFlow.

View on GitHub

Courses & Certificates

CS-473 Pattern Recognition

Skills: MATLAB, Python

- Likelihood - Distribution function - Prior and Posterior Probabilities - Maximum Likelihood Estimation - Bayesian Parameter Estimation - Hypercube and Gaussian functions - kth-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) classifier - Parzen Windows classifier - Steepest Descent algorithm


TensorFlow Developer Certificate in 2023: Zero to Mastery

Udemy

- Neural Network Regression & Classification - Computer Vision - NLP - Time Series - Transfer Learning - Supervised Learning


Python

- Modern Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control Specialization

- A∗ search algorithm - Sampling-Based Planning - Robot Kinematics and Dynamics Project - Form Closure - Stability of an Assembly - Capstone Project, Mobile Manipulation

C++

Course: CS-150 Programming

All assignments and projects were completed using Visual Studio. - Objects, Types and Values. - Errors. - Functions. - Classes - IO Streams - Customizing IO - Graphic Classes - Class Design - GUI - Vector and Free Store - Pointer and Arrays

Certificates

- Python Bootcamp: From Zero to Hero in Python
- C++ Programming – From Beginner to Beyond
- Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control Specialization