5 Questions with Faculty: Daphney-Stavroula Zois

Daphney-Stavroula Zois relaxes along the waterfront of Austin, Texas.

ALBANY, N.Y. (Dec. 6, 2017) — Daphney-Stavroula Zois is an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She joined UAlbany in Fall 2016 after a two-year postdoctoral research appointment with the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and said she was attracted to the University by “the unique opportunity to work together with other colleagues to build the ECE department from scratch and shape its future.”

Zois researches the design and development of computational methods for making effective decisions. “My research has various applications, including but not limited to physical activity monitoring for health, improved delivery of human and physical services, precision farming for increased production, and detection of accidents in roads.”

What are you working on now?

I am very passionate about my research and thus, I am always working on various diverse research projects at the same time. For instance, I am currently working on a research project to simplify and improve the discovery of human and physical services while enabling efficient usage of the service providers’ resources. At the same time, I also work on designing algorithms to quickly detect cybercrime incidents, and accidents in roads.

What made you decide to pursue your field?

Both of my parents are academics in engineering departments, and we have always had more computers in home than other things! So it felt very natural but also exciting to study Computer Engineering.

If you weren’t teaching at a university, what would you be doing?

I will probably had started my own start-up companies. And I am saying companies because I am always into generating new ideas for solving various types of problems.

What’s your favorite movie?

Mulholland Drive by David Lynch, since the lives of the characters are intensively intertwined and you cannot see what is a dream and what is the reality. It also takes place in one of my favorite cities, Los Angeles.

What’s your favorite food, to eat or cook, and why?

Since I am from Greece, I really love to cook and eat Greek food. My favorite one is Greek pita sandwich.

For more news, subscribe to UAlbany's RSS headline feeds