Dimitrios Komilis, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Professor of Solid Waste Management, Democritus University of Thrace

Short summary and Research interests

I am an environmental scientist with M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in civil and environmental engineering.

I have been doing research on the area of municipal solid waste management for the past 20 years. Since 2005, I am a faculty at the Department of Environmental Engineering at the Democritus University of Thrace-DUTH and lead a research group that focuses on organics degradation, compost quality and various municipaln solid waste management issues. My recent research emphasizes on anaerobic treatment of organic waste and their pretreatment, compost maturity and stability indices, LCA on solid state fermentation, and medical waste management. I currently supervise 2 Ph.D. students at the Dept. of Environmental Engineering in DUTH, co-supervise one Ph.D. student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) and I am the external advisor of a Ph.D. student at the dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Leeds (UK).

At the Democritus University of Thrace (D.U.Th.), I currently teach 3 undergraduate courses and participate in the teaching at 3 M.Sc. graduate programs. Since 2004, I am also a collaborating professor of the Hellenic Open University in 2 M.Sc. graduate programs. Since June 2016, I am the director of the M.Sc. graduate program "Environment and Behavior" offered by my department in D.U.Th.

From 2014 to 2016, I was a visiting researcher at the BIO-GLS research center at the Autonomous University Barcelona (UAB) under a 2-year fellowship for experienced researchers provided by the General Secretariat de Catalunya and co-funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions. There, I started working on issues related to valorization of organic wastes via solid state fermentation. I am trying to show the efficacy of the process via the combined use of laboratory experiments, that provide original data, and life cycle analysis. My cooperation with the team of researchers in UAB (GICOM) has already led to the publication of at least 15 peer reviewed articles and one chapter book. After the end of my fellowship in UAB, and since Oct. 2016, I am a visiting professor (professor vinculado) at the Departament de 'Enginyeria Química, Biològica i Ambiental, Escola d'Enginyeria, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Education

Ph.D.: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, USA, 1999. Dissertation: Life Cycle Inventory of Municipal Solid Waste Composting (supervisors: R.K.Ham).

M.Sc.: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, USA, 1995, GPA: 5.0/5.0). attended: Dissertation: The effect of precipitation and lake levels to wastewater flowrates at the Nine Springs wastewater treatment plant (supervisor: P.M.Berthouex) .

B.Sc.: Department of Environmental Studies, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece, 1992, (Grade: 8.51/10.0, with honors). Dissertation: Biogas Production from Municipal Solid Waste Landfills: A mathematical simulation model (supervisor: C.P.Halvadakis).