Maria

of Petros & Eleftheria


name in greek
photo by Olivier Christinat Summary
Maria Dimou studied physics and computing. After some years of work with IBM, she joined the EU-funded research project on network technologies EUREKA COSINE. At CERN she worked on the email gateway configuration and contributed to the definition of X.500 directory protocols, network topology and web support. She participated in the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) project for 13 years. She chaired and is now the advisor of the CERN Academic Training Committee and initiated the IT rapid e-learning project (this documentation site requires CERN login but the e-learning videos produced are publicly available on the CERN Document Server ) . During the Microsoft ALTernatives investigation she led the Documentation project, in favour of Open Source tools and the CERN-Solid collaboration.
In the years 2022 and 2023 she contributed to the CERN IT Education Strategy and the led the creation of an Educational Materials Catalogue .

Some detail
Born in Athens, Greece, graduated in Physics at the Athens University, worked for IBM for 5 years and then left the company in order to complete my conversion from Physics to Computing with a post-graduate course at the Brussels' University while working part-time for the EUREKA project COSINE in the NIKHEF laboratory in Amsterdam. I became CERN staff in 1988 as responsible for the Email gateway. This lasted until 1994, when I started working with Ben Segal on the network infrastucture of Physics Data Processing services, doing network monitoring and topology planning for a large number of, mostly Unix, hosts interconnected with Ethernet, FDDI, Ultranet and/or HiPPI. During 1997-1999 I worked with Robert Cailliau in the WebOffice, installing, configuring and documenting web packages like Apache, intelligent searching , defending the use of HyperNews for collaborative work, evaluating Web Calendar solutions and more. I worked in the User Services group during the period 1999-2003 , as a 2nd-level support analyst of web and Linux-related incidents. I also was the CERN representative at HEPiX until the beginning of 2003.

In the 2003-2016 period I worked in the Grid project. First, until 2009 with User Authentication and Authorisation software packages. This activity overlapped, since 2007 with my involvement, as the WLCG delegate to the GGUS development team. I chaired the Tracking Tools Evolution Task Force until the autumn 2013. I was one of the chairpersons of the Middleware Readiness Working Group.

I was the CERN IT Training Officer between (2009-2015) and I continue as the deputy, responsible for defining, organising, approving training courses for the CERN IT dept. members , according to the organisation's strategy for the technical solution and its members' careers.

In addition, since 2010, I participate, chaired for a number of years and now advise the CERN Academic Training Committee and sponsor some of the lectures in the programme. I initiated the CERN IT rapid e-learning project , conducted several Web Usability studies and co-chaired the Documentation Project, which mainly coordinated the creation of >200 Markdown Documentation sites.

Having sponsored lectures in Academic Training , Terra Incognita series , I now contribute actively in the shaping of the CERN IT Education strategy, after the May 2022 reorganisation.

In the framework of the Arts@cern programme, I collaborate with the artists in residence at CERN for issues related to computing and events in the CERN Computer Centre (CC). Example: Gilles Jobin's Strangels in the CC. In some part of 2016-2017 I am the scientific partner of Cassandre Poirier-Simon. I do this because I believe that science allows a person to live free and art makes life worth living.

I have a daughterKleopatra Leda and a son, Evgenios. I take classes of classical, contemporary and flamenco dance.

Click here for a more detailed CV (lacks info after 2011). Click short CV in french

THIS PAGE WAS CREATED IN 1995 TO TEST NETSCAPE. It still gets updated in pure HTML. This is the reason it looks so old-fashion :-)

The last years at CERN 2017-2023, very short summary.

Some talks, notes and papers , incomplete list.