For online security purposes, full contact information is available only on request.

E-mail: an.liapis@gmail.com

IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Ph.D. candidate, September 2011-2014

• Thesis Topic: Searching for Sentient Design Tools for Game Development
• Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Georgios N. Yannakakis
• Thesis Focus: Search-Based Procedural Content Generation, Computer-Aided Design

M.Sc., Information Technology, March 2011

• GPA: 11.25 (7-step scale)
• Study Programme: Media Technology and Games
• Specialty Line: Technology
• Thesis Topic: Optimizing Game Elements Based on Aesthetic and Performance Principles and Affected by Player Preferences
• Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Georgios N. Yannakakis

National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Diploma, Electrical and Computer Engineering, June 2007

• GPA: 7.62 (10 scale)
• Specialty Direction: Information Technology
• Thesis Topic: Human-Machine Interaction with a Focus on Character Animation
• Thesis Supervisor: Professor Stefanos Kollias

Associate Professor (October 2022 - Present), Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta, Msida, Malta.

Senior Lecturer (October 2020 - October 2022), Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta, Msida, Malta.

Lecturer (October 2015 - September 2020), Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta, Msida, Malta.

Postdoctoral Fellow (September 2014 - September 2015), Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta, Msida, Malta.

PI of the Horizon Europe project RECLAIM: AI-powered Robotic Material Recovery in a Box (project no: 101070524).

Co-PI of the Horizon 2020 project PrismArch: Virtual reality aided design blending cross-disciplinary aspects of architecture in a multi-simulation environment (project no: 952002)

Co-PI of the Horizon 2020 project AI4Media: A European Excellence Centre for Media, Society and Democracy (project no: 951911)

Co-PI of the Horizon 2020 project CoM'n'Play-Science (project no: 787476)

Co-PI of the Horizon 2020 project ENVISAGE: ENhance VIrtual learning Spaces using Applied Gaming in Education (project no: 731900)

Co-PI of the Horizon 2020 project CrossCult: Empowering reuse of digital cultural heritage in context-aware crosscuts of European history (project no: 693150)

Affiliated with the FP7 Marie Curie CIG project AutoGameDesign: Autonomous Computational Game Designers - Transforming Exploration via Deep Learning, Novelty Search and Emotive Modelling (project no: 630665)

Research Support Officer with the Erasmus+ project LearnML: Learn to Machine Learn

Research Support Officer with the Erasmus+ project eCrisis: "Europe in Crisis"

Research Support Officer with the FP7 ICT project C2Learn: Creative Emotional Reasoning Computational Tools Fostering Co-Creativity in Learning Processes (project no: 318480)

Research Support Officer with the FP7 ICT project C2Learn: Creative Emotional Reasoning Computational Tools Fostering Co-Creativity in Learning Processes (project no: 318480)

Research Associate with the FP7 ICT project SIREN: Social games for conflIct REsolution based on natural iNteraction (project no: 258453)

Computer-aided design (AI-assisted design, mixed-initiative design, co-creativity)

Artificial intelligence (computational creativity, agent control, steering behaviors, reinforcement learning)

Procedural content generation (level generation, visual asset creation, digital aesthetics)

User modeling (designer modeling, player decision modeling, procedural personas)

Artificial evolution (neuroevolution, constrained optimization, novelty search, genetic algorithms)

Machine learning (neural networks, deep learning, gradient search)

Languages: Greek (native), English (proficient), French (proficient), German (basic), Danish (beginner).

Computer Programming: C, C++, Java, C#/XNA, OpenGL, Actionscript 3, Pascal, Processing, Python, Prolog, Visual Basic, TorqueScript, VRML, Fortran, PHP, JavaScript, HTML.

Desktop Applications: Microsoft Office, Autodesk 3DS Max, Ulead Photoimpact, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Mathworks Matlab.

Game Engines: Unreal Engine 3, Ogre SDK, Unity 3D, Torque Game Engine.

153 publications, including:

• 3 book chapters
• 22 journal papers
• 85 conference papers
• 31 workshop papers
• 9 poster papers
• 2 press pieces

Find my individual publications here.

Best Student Paper Award at the International Conference on Computational Creativity for the paper "Seeding Diversity into AI Art", 2022.

Nominated for Best Paper Award at the IEEE Conference on Games for the paper "Towards General Models of Player Experience: A Study Within Genres", 2021.

Nominated for Best Paper Award at the IEEE Conference on Games for the paper "Dungeons & Replicants: Automated Game Balancing via Deep Player Behavior Modeling", 2020.

Runner-Up Best Student Paper Award at the International Conference on Computational Creativity for the paper "Data-driven Design: A Case for Maximalist Game Design", 2018.

Best Reviewer Award at the Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment conference, 2015.

Best Paper Award at the European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation [EvoGames track] for the paper "Procedural Personas as Critics for Dungeon Generation", 2015.

Best Paper Award at the IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games conference for the paper "Designer Modeling for Sentient Sketchbook", 2014.

Nominated for Best Paper Award at the IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games conference for the paper "Searching for Good and Diverse Game Levels", 2014.

Best Student Paper Award at the AAAI Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment conference for the paper "Towards a Generic Method of Evaluating Game Levels", 2013.

Best Paper Award at the ACM Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference [DETA/Self* track] for the paper "Enhancements to Constrained Novelty Search: Two-Population Novelty Search for Generating Game Content", 2013.

Nominated for Best Paper Award at the IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games conference for the paper "Adaptive Game Level Creation through Rank-based Interactive Evolution", 2013.

European Learning Game of 2013 award: SIREN (Social games for conflIct REsolution based on natural iNteraction). Games and Learning Alliance Network of Excellence, 2013.

Make Something Unreal competition, 2009.

• Educational Category: 1st Place (IT University of Copenhagen, contribution from The Witching Hour).
• Best FPS Mod: Finalist (project: The Witching Hour).
• Best Level for a Mod: Honorable Mention (project: The Witching Hour).

IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

• Guest Lecturer: Procedural Content Generation (Fall 2013-2014)
• Co-lecturer: Modern AI for Games (Fall 2011-2012)
• Co-lecturer: Advanced Topics in Game Technology (Fall 2012)
• Co-lecturer: Procedural Content Generation (Fall 2011)
• Teaching Assistant: Modern AI for Games (Fall 2010)

Co-supervisor of 3 M.Sc. Theses (Andrea Distler, Konstantinos Kontostathis, Jinhong Zhang & Rasmus Enemark Taarnby).

Co-supervisor of 2 small projects (Konstantinos Kontostathis, Lasse Jorgensen).

University of Malta, Msida, Malta

• Co-Lecturer: Advanced Artificial Intelligence and Games (Spring 2023-Present)
• Lecturer: Designing Gameworlds (Fall 2019-Present)
• Lecturer: Prototyping for Game Designers (Fall 2014-2019)
• Lecturer: Computational Game Creativity (Spring 2015-2022)
• Co-lecturer: Game Development (Spring 2015-Present)
• Co-lecturer: Affective Computing and Player Experience (Spring 2017)
• Co-lecturer: Data Mining and Game Analytics (Spring 2017)
• Guest Lecturer: Game AI Revisited (Spring 2014-2015)
• Guest Lecturer: Advanced Game AI (BSc level) (Fall 2014)
• Guest Lecturer: Game Technology (Fall 2012)

Supervisor of 12 M.Sc. Theses (Leonel Bonnici, Vlad Dreghici, Leonidas Katsaros, Ioannis Brellas, Alexander Amato-Gauchi, Eduardo Moyron Candela, Jeremy Grech, Panagiotis Migkotzidis, Konstantinos Sfikas, Daniel Vella, Casper Boserup, Edward Bamber), co-supervisor of 1 B.Sc. Thesis (Georgi Beshovski).

Reviewer for the following journals: IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics; IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation; IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and Games; IEEE Transactions on Games; IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems; Neural Computing and Applications; Memetic Computing; User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction; Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines; Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage; Artificial Intelligence Journal; Entertainment Computing; Signal, Image and Video Processing; Multimedia Tools and Applications; Graphical Models.

Member of the Program Committee for AI and Interactive Digital Entertainment (2014-present); Foundations of Digital Games (2014-present); IEEE Conference on Games (2019-present); IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (2013-2019); ACM Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (2014-present); CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2023-present); International Conference on Computational Creativity (2015-present); International Conference on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design (2014-present); Computer Science and Electronic Engineering Conference (2015-2016).

Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Games.

Member of the Games Technical Committee of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society.

Guest editor of the special issue on Culture Games in ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage.

Guest editor of the special issue on AI-based and AI-assisted Game Design in IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and Games.

Guest editor of the special issue on GaLA Conf 2019 in International Journal of Serious Games.

Guest editor of the special issue on Computer Aided Game and Puzzle Design in International Computer Games Association Journal.

Program Chair of the 2023 International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (11-14 April 2023, Lisbon, Portugal)

Publicity Chair of the 2023 IEEE Conference on Games (21-24 August 2023, Boston, USA)

Track Chair of the 2022 IEEE Conference on Games (21-24 August 2022, Beijing, China)

Competition Chair of the 2021 IEEE Conference on Games (17-20 August 2021, Copenhagen, Denmark)

General Chair of the 2020 International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (15-18 September 2020, Bugibba, Malta)

General Chair of the 2019 Games and Learning Alliance Conference (27-29 November 2019, Athens, Greece)

Track Chair, Demos Chair of the 2019 IEEE Conference on Games (20-23 August 2019, London, UK)

General Chair of the 2019 EvoMusArt (24-26 April 2019, Leipzig, Germany)

General Chair of the 2018 EvoMusArt (4-6 April 2018, Parma, Italy)

Proceedings Chair of the 2017 EvoMusArt (19-21 April 2017, Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Local Chair of the 2016 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (20-23 September 2016, Santorini, Greece)

Workshop Organization

• 2025 Workshop on Tabletop Games (15-18 April 2025, Vienna & Graz, Austria)
• 2024 Workshop on Human-AI Interaction through Play (5-8 August 2024, Milan, Italy)
• 2023 Workshop on Tabletop Games (11-14 April 2023, Lisbon, Portugal)
• 2023 Workshop on Human-AI Interaction through Play (11-14 April 2023, Lisbon, Portugal)
• 2022 Workshop on Tabletop Games (5-8 September 2022, Athens, Greece)
• 2020 Workshop on Invisible AI-driven HCI Systems (25-26 October 2020, Tallinn, Estonia)
• 2019 Workshop on Tabletop Games (26 August 2019, San Luis Obispo, USA)
• 2019 Workshop on Computational Creativity and Deep Generative Design: Bridging the Gap (17-18 June 2019, Charlotte, USA)
• 2018 Workshop on Tabletop Games (7 August 2018, Malmo, Sweden)
• 2017 workshop on Tracing the Boundaries of Games as Research Environments (14 August 2017, Cape Cod, USA)
• 2017 Workshop on Mixed-Initiative Creative Interfaces (7 May 2017, Colorado, USA)
• 2016 Workshop on Experimental AI in Games (8-9 October 2016, Burlingame, USA)
• 2016 Workshop on Computational Creativity and Games (27 June 2016, Paris, France)
• 2015 Workshop on Experimental AI in Games (14-15 November 2015, Santa Cruz, USA)
• 2015 Workshop on Procedural Content Generation (23 June 2015, Asilomar, USA)
• 2013 Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Game Aesthetics (14 October 2013, Boston, USA)

Mandatory armed service has been fulfilled, Febrary 2008.

Local organizer of the Global Game Jam Malta (2014-Present) and the Mediterranean Game Jam (2015).

Student helper in the 8th Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (2013) and IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (2010).

Intro guide for new students in the Media Technology and Games program (2010).

Participant in the Nordic Game Jam (2009 and 2010) and Global Game Jam Malta (2016).

Available upon request.