About Me: A conventionally unconventional path

About Me: A conventionally unconventional path

My professional journey reads like a Hobbit's tale: Greece up to mid-thirties → US to work at a major research lab → back to Greece after 17 years.

While I never published much personally (because navigating corporate red tape is not my type of entertainment), I did work with people who are actually famous in their fields. Additionally, it turns out that leaving your homeland with a PhD already in hand to work in the US industry, rather than using graduate school as the easier immigration path, as 99% of people do, has made me something of an oddity.

Here's where it gets weird: while I was spending my days working on cutting-edge projects (including DARPA/NSF-funded work), I accidentally started writing through therapeutic miscommunication. My therapist, frustrated that I kept glossing over life events, asked me to "write things." Being an engineer, I interpreted this literally - not 'journal about your feelings' but just... write things. And the only 'things' my brain could process writing were fantasy stories, because this is the only thing I would read. She realized I had a knack for vivid imagery (which involved a lot of Gothic horror) and suggested I cultivate it. I attended a Writers Workshop in NYC, which evolved into a continuing writing group. My main projects include a gothic horror story (which is pretty dark), a comedy about demons running Hell as a corporation that started when a member of my writing group suggested the demonic couple in another horror story had sitcom energy, and a fairytale that explores philosophical questions, just with 100% more Imps than your average philosopher. Warning: the description understates reality; all three works are really wild

I also like D&D and RPGs, because that’s exactly what you expect from an engineer who writes fantasy—and also played card games competitively, hitting high ranks in both Hearthstone and Magic Arena. Because I played Hearthstone mainly on mobile like some sort of digital caveman who never learned the ancient Gen Z art of screenshotting, I only have Magic Arena evidence of my questionable life priorities.

Since I had some time between projects, I started a Master's in Physics for intellectual stimulation. The curriculum turned out to be more rigorous than anticipated on both fronts - harder material and more time-consuming than expected for a working professional program (so much for my brilliant plan to wing it).

Currently accepting opportunities that involve either cutting-edge technology or creative projects that make people question my sanity. Preferably both.