Hi! My name is George Zarkadakis.
I have studied Control and Systems Engineering at City University, London, and have a PhD on AI. My doctorate thesis was on the development of an expert system for medical diagnostics in an Intensive Care Unit. Since graduating in 1989 I have worked for the European Commission, Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), Silicon Graphics Inc and the European Bioinformatics Institute. I have also taught postgraduate courses at Athens and Panteion University.
Since 2000 I have been a full-time science communicator and journalist. In that year I launched the popular science magazine Focus in Greece, becoming its Editor-in-Chief and making it one of the most successful titles in the country. In 2007 I left the magazine to set up a popular science book imprint called Avgo Books. I have been a guest of the Cheltenham Science Festival since 2008 and have advised in the internationalization of “Famelab”, a talent competition for young science communicators. I am the writer of “Eureka!” – the top popular science program on Greek TV – and have taken part in two History Channel programs, “Greece: Engineering an Empire” and “Clash of the Gods”.
I have a keen interest in brains and consciousness. I have published a couple of academic papers on the subject, as well as a popular science book on consciousness “The Mystery of Mind: how the brain evokes consciousness” (2001; Greek Edition only).
I am academic visitor at the Science Communication Group at the Imperial College, London.
I am also a novelist and a playwright. My first novel ”The Secrets of the Lands Without” was published in 1994 and was the first novel in Greek to be released on the World Wide Web. In 1996 I published ”East of the End”, a runner-up for the prestigious Greek State Literary Prize. ”Archipelago Republic” was published in 1999 and was made into a screenplay for a movie. In 2002 I published a collection of short stories under the title “The day America disappeared”. In 2004 I published my fourth novel “The Passage” in Greece and Italy (in 2007). My latest novel (“The Island Survival Guide”) was published in Spain and Greece in 2009; it is a detective story with a lot of neurophilosophy! I am now working on a new novel.
My website is www.georgezarkadakis.com
