Parvis Exeter Academy

Our Faculty

At Parvis Exeter, our faculty are more than instructors; they are the active, vital core of our academic continuum. We have recruited a diverse, world-class body of scholars, researchers, artists, and practitioners from across Europe and the globe. They are drawn here by our unique, integrated model, which allows them to mentor students seamlessly from their first high school inquiries to their final postgraduate breakthroughs. Our faculty are active in their fields, publishing in leading journals, shaping industry, and engaging with the great ethical and technical questions of our time, all while remaining deeply committed to the personal mentorship that defines our community.

Computational Science & Digital Innovation

Dr. Aras Jankauskas

  • Professor of Computer Science & Head of the Centre for Computational Ethics & AI (CCEA)
  • Dr. Jankauskas joins us from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, following a research fellowship at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Informatics. His work bridges the gap between high-performance computing and moral philosophy. As Head of the CCEA, he leads the Academy’s flagship research into AI alignment, algorithmic fairness, and the long-term societal impacts of autonomous systems. He is a passionate advocate for embedding ethics into the core of the engineering curriculum.
  • Selected Publications:
    • The Alignment Problem: A Human-Centric Framework for AI Governance (2023, MIT Press). ISBN: 978-0-262-04791-2
    • “Beyond the Black Box: A Framework for Explainable Reinforcement Learning in Public Policy.” Nature Machine Intelligence 5 (2024): 1021–1034. DOI: 10.1038/s42256-024-00812-5

Professor Elina Kallas

  • Associate Professor of Human-Computer Interaction
  • Professor Kallas’s research is situated at the intersection of tangible computing and interaction design. With a PhD from Aalto University, Finland, her work explores how we can move beyond the flat screen to create more intuitive, humane, and embodied digital experiences. She directs the ‘Tangible Interfaces’ lab, a joint initiative with the Faculty of Design, and her courses on UX/UI are foundational to both our computing and design degrees.
  • Selected Publications:
    • “Tactile Data: Embodied Interaction with Complex Datasets.” Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). DOI: 10.1145/3544548.3581307
    • The Haptic Sense: Designing for Touch in a Digital World (2022, Routledge). ISBN: 978-0-367-76110-4

Dr. Søren Vestergaard

  • Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity & Cryptography
  • Dr. Vestergaard brings over a decade of experience from his role as a senior analyst at Denmark’s National Cyber Security Centre (CFCS). His academic work is grounded in the practical, high-stakes challenges of real-world systems security. His research focuses on post-quantum cryptography and the security of decentralised networks, and he is a key advisor to our engineering faculty on securing robotic and IoT systems.
  • Selected Publications:
    • “Attacking the Protocol: Vulnerabilities in Modern IoT Mesh Networks.” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security 19 (2024): 4055-4070. DOI: 10.1109/TIFS.2024.3391028
    • Applied Cryptography for Modern Systems (2022, Springer). ISBN: 978-3-030-98150-1

Design & Creative Media

Professor Isolde De Vries

  • Professor of Practice & Head of Design & Creative Media
  • Professor De Vries is a leading European interaction designer. A graduate of the Design Academy Eindhoven, she spent 15 years in professional practice, leading award-winning global projects for clients in tech, culture, and mobility before transitioning to academia. Her practice-based research focuses on our unique ‘Hellenic-Digital’ nexus, exploring how the classical principles of form, light, and proportion can inform contemporary user-experience design.
  • Selected Publications:
    • Form & Interface: Classical Proportions in a Digital Medium (2023, Gestalten). ISBN: 978-3-967-04085-9
    • “The ‘Atelier’ Model: Re-thinking the Digital Design Critique.” Journal of Design Practice 16, no. 2 (2022): 115–130.

Dr. Matija Novak

  • Lecturer in Digital Humanities & Speculative Design
  • Dr. Novak holds a PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London, and is a vital link between our design and classics faculties. His work employs ‘speculative design’—creating prototypes of possible futures—to ask critical questions about where our technology is taking us. He leads the ‘E-Agora’ project, an immersive reconstruction of the ancient Agora, and his seminars challenge students to use design as a tool for philosophical inquiry.
  • Selected Publications:
    • Prototyping the Future: A Toolkit for Speculative Thought (2022, Bloomsbury Academic). ISBN: 978-1-350-25801-6
    • “Digital Hermeneutics: Using VR to Interpret Contested Heritage Sites.” Leonardo 56, no. 1 (2023): 45–51. DOI: 10.1162/leon_a_02319

Engineering & Applied Physics

Professor (Eng.) Lena Sjöberg

  • Professor of Sustainable Systems Engineering
  • Recruited from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, Professor Sjöberg is a leading authority on renewable energy systems, with a specific focus on solar and grid-scale storage. Her research is perfectly suited to our Mediterranean context, and she leads a major externally-funded project to develop resilient micro-grids for island communities. Her MEng background ensures her teaching is a rigorous blend of theoretical physics and practical engineering application.
  • Selected Publications:
    • “Beyond Lithium: Organic Flow Batteries for Mediterranean Climate Deployment.” Joule (Cell Press) 8, no. 4 (2024): 981-1002. DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2024.03.011
    • Grid-Scale Energy Storage: Materials and Systems (2023, Elsevier). ISBN: 978-0-128-24510-3

Dr. Patrik Horváth

  • Assistant Professor of Robotics & Mechatronics
  • Dr. Horváth is a rising star in robotics, joining Parvis Exeter from the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich. His research focuses on robotic perception and sensor fusion, enabling robots to navigate complex, unstructured, and human-occupied environments. He collaborates closely with our AI faculty on embodied intelligence and with our design faculty on human-robot interaction.
  • Selected Publications:
    • “Dynamic Sensor Fusion for Resilient Navigation in GPS-Denied Environments.” Science Robotics 8, no. 82 (2023): eaddf061.
    • “Haptic-Visual Control for Semi-Autonomous Grasping.” IEEE Transactions on Robotics 40 (2024): 1502-1518. DOI: 10.1109/TRO.2023.3340512

Economics & Political Governance

Dr. Klaus Weidmann

  • Professor of Political Economy
  • Prior to joining the Academy, Dr. Weidmann was a Senior Fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels and a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on European economic integration, monetary policy, and the politics of financial regulation. His presence in Athens provides our students with direct, high-level insights into the forces shaping the Eurozone and the wider global economy.
  • Selected Publications:
    • The Incomplete Union: Sovereignty and Solvency in the Eurozone (2022, Oxford University Press). ISBN: 978-0-19-887315-7
    • “Governance by Rules: The Political Economy of the EU Recovery Fund.” Journal of Public Economics 231 (2024): 105068.

Dr. Anika Kalniņa

  • Lecturer in Applied Econometrics & Sustainability
  • Dr. Kalniņa holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and brings a data-first approach to policy analysis. Her work uses novel econometric models and “big data” to measure the real-world impacts of environmental and social governance (ESG) policies. She is a core contributor to our sustainability curriculum, with joint-taught modules in both the engineering and management faculties.
  • Selected Publications:
    • “Does ‘Green’ Investment Pay? A Causal Analysis of Portfolio Performance.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 123 (2024): 102910.
    • Data-Driven Policy: A Practical Guide to Causal Inference (2023, Palgrave Macmillan). ISBN: 978-3-031-20108-8

Classical Studies & Modern Philosophy

Professor Ilias Karras

  • Professor of Classical Studies
  • A native Athenian, Professor Karras returned to Greece to join Parvis Exeter after holding a distinguished chair at the University of Cambridge. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Attic orators and the legal system of democratic Athens. His return to found our Classics faculty gives the institution an unparalleled level of academic authority and a direct, living link to the very subject matter beneath our feet.
  • Selected Publications:
    • The Citizen’s Voice: Oratory and Law in Classical Athens (2021, Cambridge University Press). ISBN: 978-1-108-83759-0
    • “Rethinking the Agora: New Evidence from the ‘E-Agora’ Reconstruction.” American Journal of Archaeology 127, no. 3 (2023): 301-319.

Dr. Zofia Nowakowska

  • Assistant Professor of Applied Ethics
  • Dr. Nowakowska, a graduate of the University of Leuven, is the primary philosophical bridge to our technical faculties. Her research focuses on contemporary moral philosophy, with specialisms in bioethics and the ethics of technology. She co-teaches several foundational modules within the Centre for Computational Ethics & AI (CCEA) and is a driving force behind our mission to cultivate ethically-aware technologists.
  • Selected Publications:
    • “Algorithmic Responsibility: A Virtue Ethics Approach.” Philosophy & Technology 36, no. 45 (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s13347-023-00627-y
    • The Moral Agent in the Digital Age (2022, Polity). ISBN: 978-1-509-54813-0

Strategic Management & Entrepreneurship

Professor (Practice) Tiago Fernandes

  • Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship
  • Professor Fernandes is not a traditional academic. He is a successful serial entrepreneur who co-founded two major technology firms in Lisbon before exiting to become an active angel investor. We recruited him to build and lead our “Venture in Practice” module. He provides our MBA and BSc students with unfiltered, real-world mentorship on product-market fit, fundraising, and, in his words, “the art of resilient leadership.”
  • Selected Publications:
    • The First 1000 Days: Building a Resilient Venture (2023, Wiley). ISBN: 978-1-119-89741-5

Dr. Eva Lambert

  • Associate Professor of Strategic Management
  • With a PhD from INSEAD, Dr. Lambert is our leading academic on corporate strategy. Her research examines how established firms adapt to digital disruption and how leaders can build resilient organisations in the face of uncertainty. Her work on ‘Digital Transformation’ is a cornerstone of the Parvis Exeter MBA, bringing rigorous academic theory to the practical challenges faced by modern executives.
  • Selected Publications:
    • “Leading in Ambiguity: Strategy as a Dynamic Capability.” Strategic Management Journal 44, no. 9 (2023): 2145–2170. DOI: 10.1002/smj.3504
    • The Resilient Enterprise: A Leader’s Guide to Digital Transformation (2022, Routledge). ISBN: 978-0-367-70981-6