Student Stories: Efthyvoulos Drousiotis has two papers accepted for international conferences this summer
PhD student, Efthyvoulos Drousiotis, gives an insight into life at the Distributed Algorithms CDT.
My Journey
My journey began in Summer 2019 when I had an Internship at the University of Liverpool related to applications of machine learning in education that lasted for six months. It was at that time I realised that I want to have a career as a researcher related to Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning.
Last summer (2020) I graduated from University of Liverpool with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and I decided to apply for a studentship at the Distributed Algorithms CDT.
My project
The University of Liverpool in collaboration with the National Crime Agency (NCA) identified the problem of the exponential growth of data volumes and the need for automating the processing of the data. My project has specific technical requirements that are aimed at the construction of scalable, accurate, and transparent algorithms. You can read more about my project here.
My experience at the CDT
As a Distributed Algorithms CDT student, I have the opportunity to collaborate with industrial and academic experts in a state-of-the-art environment, making it an exceptional place for research. Moreover, being part of a cohort, allows me to realise the value of being a member of a team and opens future collaboration opportunities, such as my current partnership with Durham University where I am a visiting student at Durham University, at the learning lab. View the details here.
Most recent publications
Recently I published a paper for the Intelligence Tutoring Systems conference, co-authored with my primary supervisor Professor Simon Maskell and with Dr Lei Shi, titled ‘Early Predictor for Student Success Based on Behavioural and Demographical Indicators’. The paper presents the practises and the algorithms we used to predict student’s performance including Withdraw, Fail, Pass, Distinction with high accuracy. The novelty of the paper is that we achieved to make those prediction within the first week of the modules, so lecturers can provide interventions as early as possible and enhance student performance.
I have also published a paper co-authored with one of my cohort peers, Panagiotis Pentaliotis, together with Dr Lei Shi and Professor Alexandra I Cristea from Durham University. The paper is entitled ‘Capturing Fairness and Uncertainty in Student Dropout’ which was accepted for Artificial Intelligence in Education 2021. The conference will be virtual this year from The Netherlands.
Distributed Algorithms CDT
The Distributed Algorithms CDT is an Innovative Data Science, AI and Machine Learning Research Centre, aligning PhD students, academics and industrialists to work together to generate novel solutions to tough data science challenges. If you would like to find out more about our programme and would like to talk about becoming an active member of our CDT community, please visit our website or email kelli.cassidy@liverpool.ac.uk 
Efthyvoulos Drousiotis. Cohort 2 student working with National Crime Agency