Scientific Team
Prof. Foteini Asderaki
Co-Chair
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Prof. Foteini Asderaki is the Academic Coordinator and the Co-Chair of the EXCELEM 2.0. She is a full Professor of European Integration Theory and
European Education Policy, a Jean Monnet Chair on European Union’s Education, Training, Research and Innovation Policies and the Deputy Chair of the Department of International and European Studies, University of Piraeus, Greece. She is also the elected Chair of the European Doctoral School for the Common Security and Defence Policy of the European Security and Defence College, in Brussels, for three consecutive tenures (2019-21, 2021-23, 2023-2025). She holds a PhD with distinction in Political Sciences issued by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her thesis was awarded the Honorary Grant of the National Bank of Greece in memory of Theodoros Karatzas by the Hellenic University Association for European Studies in 2008. She is the director of the Laboratory on Education Policy, Research, Development, and Interuniversity Cooperation of the University of Piraeus. She has served as a Board member and Vice Chair of the Steering Committee for the Group I-Western Europe and North America at the International Bureau of Education, Unesco, Geneva, 2016-17, as a Bologna Follow-Up Group Member, 2004-09 and as a member of various national,
regional, and bilateral committees in education (Member of the Committee for Intercultural Education; Cluster on Modernization of Higher Education; Greek-French committee; Greek-German committee). She is an evaluator of European research programmes and awards (Horizon 2020, Altiero Spinelli, Jan Amos, Unesco’s Teachers Excellence Awards in Greece) and a member of the evaluation committee for the internationalisation of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. She has been the academic coordinator of several European programmes including Jean Monnet projects since 2012 (B.E.ST., EuropeStarts, YouthActiv (best practice), U4EU, IncludU) and the Erasmus+ KA 3 Teachers4Europe: Setting an Agora for Democratic Culture (2018-21) as well as the European Parliament School Ambassador Programme (2020-25). She is the co-editor (with Aristotle Tziampiris) of the collective volume “The New Eastern Mediterranean Transformed: Emerging Issues and New Actors (Springer, 2021)
Prof. Sharon Pardo (M), Ph.D
Co-Chair
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Prof. Sharon Pardo( M), Ph.D., Ghent University, Faculty of Political and Social Studies) is the co-Chair of the CoE EXCELEM 2.0. He is a full Professor and a Jean Monnet Chair ad personam in European Studies in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). Pardo was the Chairperson of The Simone Veil Research Centre for Contemporary European Studies – The National Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at BGU. He is the co-editor of Europe and the World book series by Lexington Books. Prof. Pardo served as the Chairperson of the Department of Politics and Government at BGU between the years 2016-2018, and served as the President of The Israeli Association of International Studies (IAIS), as a Senior Adjunct Fellow at the National Centre for Research on Europe (NCRE), University of Canterbury, New Zealand, a Member of the Academic Council of the European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS), a Member of the Board of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations (ICFR), and a Member of the Israel Bar Association. His research interests focus on the legal and political dimensions of European Union foreign and security policy. Prof. Pardo also has a significant interest in the development of the Euro-Mediterranean region, in Israeli-European Union relations and in international relations and big data. He has published widely on these issues. Prof. Pardo teaches modules on the European integration process, diplomacy, and public international law.
Prof. Aristotle Tziampiris
Academic Staff
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Prof. Aristotle Tziampiris is a full Professor of International Relations and Chair of the Department of International and European Studies at the University of Piraeus and Vice President of Greece’s National Documentation Center. He is also Director of the MSc Program in American Studies: Politics, Strategy and Economics (taught in English in cooperation with New York University’s Center on Global Affairs), President of the Council for International Relations-Greece (CFIR-GR) till 2024 and a member of the Board of Directors of “Study in Greece.” Dr Tziampiris is Visiting [Non-Resident] Scholar at the Center on Public Diplomacy of the University of Southern California (USC), Standing Fellow at New York University’s Remarque Institute,
an Academic Advisor to the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC), a member of the Executive Academic Board of the European Security and Defence College (ESDC), a member of the academic committee of the Eastern-Mediterranean Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence (2018-2021), and a founding member of the Israeli-Hellenic Forum. He is the author of The Emergence of Israeli-Greek Cooperation (Springer, 2015); co-editor (with Foteini Asderaki) The New Eastern Mediterranean Transformed: Emerging Issues and New Actors (Springer, 2021); co-editor (with Spyridon Litsas) The New Eastern Mediterranean: Theory Politics and States in a Volatile Era (Springer, 2019), and co-editor (with Spyridon Litsas) The Eastern Mediterranean in
Transition: Multipolarity, Politics and Power (Ashgate Press, 2015). He holds a PhD in Government and an MSc (econ) degree in European Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a graduate of Middlebury College (BA in Political Science).
Dr. Hila Zahavi
Academic Staff
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Dr. Hila Zahavi is the director of the Simone Veil Centre for Contemporary European Studies and the elected Secretary General of the Israeli Association for International Studies. Her research focuses on Israel-EU relations, diplomacy, and higher education policies. She teaches various European Studies modules at the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Open University of Israel.
Prof.Ilias Maglogiannis
Academic Staff
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In 2013 he joined the University of Piraeus. He has been principal investigator in many European (i.e. H2020: GATEKEEPER, CROWDHEALTH, AGILE, UNCAP, FP7: e-LICO, INHOME, FP6: UNITE, NOMAD, TELEMED, FP5: MOMEDA, INTRACLINIC) and National Research programs, while he has also served as external evaluator in R&D projects for the EU, the Government of Hong Kong, France, Portugal, Czech, Cyprus and Greece. His published scientific work includes three (3) books (Springer, IOS press and Morgan Claypool Publishers), 130 journal papers and more than 200 international conference papers. Dr. Maglogiannis has received more than 8000 citations on his published work (h-index = 42). He served as Associate Editor for the Journals IEEE Biomedical Health Informatics, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, Journal on Information Technology in Healthcare and he is editorial board member of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Healthcare Engineering and Intelligent Decision Technologies. He has also served as guest editor in 8 international journals (IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology, Oncology Reports, Simulation, Applied
Intelligence, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Journal Universal Access in the Information Society, Neurocomputing, Evolving Systems). Dr. Maglogiannis is a Senior member of IEEE, SPIE, ACM etc and serves also as affiliated faculty in the CS Dept Univ. of Texas at Arlington USA. Dr. Maglogiannis is also since 2014 president of IFIP Working Group WG12.5 (AI Applications). Professor Maglogiannis will contribute as an
academic staff member, connecting students and researchers of the ICTs discipline.
Ambassador Leshno-Yaar
Academic Staff
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Ambassador Leshno-Yaar is a retired Israeli diplomat with extensive experience in international relations and diplomacy. He served as Ambassador of Israel to the European Union and NATO, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the U.N. in Geneva, and Deputy Director General of the
U.N. and International Organizations Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also held various positions at the Israeli Embassies in Washington, D.C., Canberra, and Singapore. Ambassador Leshno-Yaar teaches modules on International Relations and Diplomacy at BGU.
Prof. Panagiotis Grigoriou
Academic Staff
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Integration/ The social and institutional transformation of Europe. The European Union in search of internal cohesion and identity on the international scene (2002-2009). Between 2014 and 2017, he was Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the Aegean. President of the Department of Sociology of his University (2011-2012) and ex officcio member of the Senate (2011-2012, 2014-2017). Between 2016 and 2019, he was the coordinator of the Jean Monnet Academic Network on Governance, Pluralism and Trans-nationalisation in Europe. He was responsible for two Jean Monnet Modules (European Union and International Law, EU Economic and Social Cohesion Issues) and academic responsible for the Europe Direct North Aegean that functions under the auspices of the University of the Aegean. Between 2008 and 2013, he was a member of the Euro- Mediterranean University (EMUNI) Senate in Slovenia and participated actively in its educational and professional activities. He is member (President during the
period 2013-2014) of the Administration Board of the European Community Studies Association (Hellenic Branch) and member of the Hellenic Society for International Law and International Relations. Chevalier des Ordres des Palmes Académiques (Nomination by the French Government, 2005). He has been a member of the Legal Division of the Hellenic Council for Refugees (1992-1993), Expert at the Hellenic Centre for European Studies, Athens (1989-1998) and Special Advisor in European Affairs at the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1998-2001). He has taught as visiting professor at many
academic institutions in Europe, Africa and Canada (Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, Luxembourg, Institut d’ Etudes Politiques de Strasbourg, Faculty of Public Administration & Political Science of Bucharest, Montpellier 3, Institut européen de Genève, Centre européen de formation de Berlin, Laval,
UQAM, Montréal, Marrakech, Abidjan, etc). His scientific work is focused on European law and European politics issues, but also on topics that deal with International Law and Human Rights. Professor Grigoriou will contribute as an academic staff member, bringing students and researchers of the University of Aegean, Department of Sociology to the CoE activities.
Dr. Yuval Reinfeld
Academic Staff
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Dr. Yuval Reinfeld is a scholar with a Ph.D. and an esteemed research fellow at Ben Gurion University. He is also a dedicated law lecturer at Harry Radzyner Law School, Reichman University. Dr. Reinfeld’s expertise lies in European Union law, with a focus on European technological regulations,
standards, and compliance aspects, as well as data protection, privacy and AI. His research delves into the impact of the European Court of Justice and European law on the global arena. Dr. Reinfeld holds a Bachelor of Laws (L.L.B) and Bachelor of Arts (B.A) from Reichman University (IDC), and he furthered his academic journey with a Master of Laws (L.L.M), graduating Cum Laude from Reichman University.