Balas Costas

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CV

Speciality: Optoelectronics, Hyper-Spectral imaging technologies and data analysis for non destructive analysis, optical molecular imaging, optical biopsy, tissue optical spectroscopy and modelling, design and development of biophotonic medical diagnostic devices.

Short CV: Costas Balas is full Professor, Director of the Electronics Lab and founder/leader of the Optoelectronics group of the ECE School of Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece. He received the degree in physics and the Ph.D. degree in medical physics in 1987 and 1992, respectively from the University of Patras, Greece. Since completing the doctorate degree, he has been working for 3 years as a postdoctoral research fellow in National and European collaborative research projects and as a research consultant in medical device companies. In 1995 he joined, as a senior research scientist, the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH)-Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL), one of the largest research centers in Greece. During the period 1996-2001 he founded and he was the head of the Biomedical Imaging and Spectroscopy Lab of IESL. During his tenure at FORTH, Professor  Balas developed and patented innovative platform imaging technologies for the non-invasive diagnosis of precancerous lesions. In 2002, and on the basis of his innovations, he founded DySIS-Medical Ltd-a medical device spin-off currently with international activities. Apart from being the founder of DySIS-Medical, he held for more than 10 years key positions, including member of the Board of Directors and Chief Scientific Officer-head of the R&D dept. He is the author or co-author of more than 60 peer-reviewed scientific publications and has delivered numerous invited presentations in international conferences. He is the sole inventor or the co-inventor of several issued patents (USA, EU, Japan, China etc) or pending patents, a number of which has become products launched worldwide, though technology-transfer contracts. He has attracted multimillion level EU and US grants for supporting his research and has contributed in financing the startup he founded with several millions from international venture capital entities. Prof. Costas Balas, is the Winner of the Applied Research & Innovation Competition "Greece Innovates”, 2013, a national competition organized by Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) and Eurobank-Greece, with 130 scientific participants from academic, research and industry sections. The 1st prize was nominated for his project entitled: “Spectral machine hyper-vision for early and non-invasive diagnosis”. He has received fellowships, and institutional, conference and patent awards. He has been a member of several international conference committees and a regular paper reviewer in top-level scientific journals and conferences.

In 2001 he joined as an Associate Professor Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering of the Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece, where he developed Optoelectronics and Applications as a new research activity of the Department’s Electronics Lab. He is currently full Professor, Director of Electronics Laboratory and group leader of Optoelectronics Group and he teaches both undergraduate (Electronics I - HRY204, Optoelectronics- HRY412, Biomedical Technology–HRY513) and graduate courses (Advanced Topics and Applications in Electronic Imaging-HRY603, Optoelectronics-HRY607).

Education: 

• Ph.D. University of Patras, 1992
• B.Sc. University of Patras, 1988

Research Areas: His research experience/interests include photonic devices, hyperspectral imaging systems, spectroscopy, medical diagnostic devices, biophotonics, optical biopsy, molecular imaging, in-silico modelling of dynamic bio-optical processes and scientific instrumentation for non-destructive analysis. He is a member of IEEE-photonics society, Optical Society of America, SPIE-the International Society for Optical Engineering.

Sector: Electronics and Computer Architecture Division

Laboratory: Electronics Laboratory

Courses:  Electronics I, Optoelectronics, Biomedical Electronics, Special Topics in Optoelectronic Biomedical Technology