jtsoukalas [at] hua.gr · jtsoukalas.gr · orcid.org/0009-0003-9673-6783 · github.com/jtsoukalas · linkedin.com/in/jasontsoukalas
PhD candidate at Harokopio University of Athens, researching how software can be responsible by design.
Part of my work is building and supporting digital systems for the University, which keeps my research close to software people use every day.
Doctoral work since 2026
Responsible Systems by Design: Integrating responsibility within the agile systems development lifecycle, focusing on cloud computing and AI systems
More of the software we build shapes daily life, often with AI inside. One question keeps coming up: will these systems act the way we agree they should, following a shared moral compass? The question is vague, and so are most answers. That's why we aim to treat responsibility as something we can measure.
In practice it gets harder. Projects keep growing while deadlines keep shrinking, and legislation like the “EU AI Act” now asks teams to show responsibility, not just claim it.
So how do you tell how responsible a system is? My research starts at the beginning: design. In agile teams, where things change all the time, the aim is to check each sprint for things like fairness, safety and transparency before it ships, so speed doesn't cost responsibility.
It is a practical question for me too. My BSc thesis became the HR management system (HRMS) Harokopio University of Athens runs on, and my MSc thesis extended it with AI, so I know the pull between shipping fast and shipping responsibly first-hand.
Certification for Ethical and Regulatory Transparency in Artificial Intelligence · Horizon Europe
An EU project building tools and guidelines that help AI systems meet European rules: checking data quality, measuring bias and protecting personal data, on the way to certifying AI. I work on it with Prof. Mara Nikolaidou and her team at the Department of Informatics and Telematics.
Fairness, safety and transparency treated as design requirements rather than after-the-fact checks.
Fitting responsibility checks into iterative, fast-moving development without stalling it.
Ways to measure responsibility, compare it, and check it over a system's life.
The two settings in focus, where shared infrastructure and automated decisions raise the stakes.
What I've been up to
Theses so far; papers to follow
MSc thesisDepartment of Informatics and Telematics, Harokopio University of Athens
An information-extraction subsystem that reads scanned administrative documents and enters what it finds into the University's HRMS, using open-weight large language models. The larger models handled Greek administrative terms best; Llama 3.3 70B scored highest, at an F1 of 80.6%. In Greek.
@mastersthesis{tsoukalas2026docs2hrms,
author = {Tsoukalas, Jason},
title = {Design and Development of an Optical Information
Recognition Tool with Automated Entry into the Human
Resource Management System ({HRMS}) Using Artificial
Intelligence Technologies},
school = {Harokopio University of Athens},
address = {Athens, Greece},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.26258/heal.hua.6331},
note = {In Greek}
}BSc thesisDepartment of Informatics and Telematics, Harokopio University of Athens
An HR management system built for the University, connected to its existing subsystems and to external bodies, supporting the daily work of the Personnel Office and staff, and designed as the base of a future software suite. Built with Django.
@thesis{tsoukalas2024hrms,
author = {Tsoukalas, Jason},
title = {Implementation of a Human Resource Management
Information System ({HRMS}) and its Integration with
Existing Subsystems for {Harokopio University of Athens}},
type = {{BSc} thesis},
institution = {Harokopio University of Athens},
address = {Athens, Greece},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.26258/heal.hua.7405},
note = {In Greek}
}Doctoral papers will be listed here as they appear. The full record is on ORCID.
Systems I have designed, built and run
Some projects, and most of the source code, stay private to protect ongoing work and the University's operations.
Human Resource Management System for Harokopio University of Athens, from requirements analysis to on-premise deployment. It began as my BSc thesis, has run the University's daily HR operations since September 2025, and my MSc thesis extended it with AI-based document extraction.
Admissions platform for all of the University's master's programmes: a public programme catalogue, verified applicant accounts, programme-specific forms, automated recommendation-letter requests with reminders, and a review portal for staff. Programme data syncs from the Student Information System.
The University's main website, redesigned and rebuilt with the NOC team: a single place for every school, department and service, in Greek and English.
hua.grWebsite of the office that manages the University's research projects and grants: calls, announcements, project management and technology transfer.
elke.hua.grA personal summer project for the University's PR office and secretaries. You connect a Gmail account over OAuth 2.0 and upload a CSV or XLSX spreadsheet with one row per recipient, which you can edit in the browser. Each column becomes a variable you can drop into the message body, and each recipient can get their own attachments. Messages go out through the Gmail API as background jobs, with retries, throttling and a delivery log for every message.
Real-time power telemetry from the HPC GPU node and network switches in the University data centre, streamed to the ThingsBoard IoT platform. Built in the MSc course on cloud platforms with Prof. George Kousiouris, as a first step toward greener computing.
Also available as a printable PDF.
Department of Informatics and Telematics, Harokopio University of Athens
PhD candidate since June 2026.
Digital Services Department, Sub-Directorate of Development, Quality and Digital Governance, Special Account for Research Funds (ELKE), Harokopio University of Athens
Building and running the digital services of the research funds office.
Network Operations Center (NOC), Digital Governance Unit, Directorate of Financial Services & Infrastructure Management, Harokopio University of Athens
Designed, built and ran the University's internal platforms, including the HR management system, the MSc admissions platform and the University's websites, along with further internal services, integrations with existing University systems, and their deployment and day-to-day operation.
University Network Operations Center, Harokopio University of Athens
Coordinated the campus technical support team.
Harokopio University of Athens
Technical and field support across the campus.
Harokopio University of Athens · Supervisor: Prof. Mara Nikolaidou
Research: Responsible Systems by Design
Department of Informatics and Telematics, Harokopio University of Athens · Grade 9.61/10
Thesis: optical information recognition with automated entry into the University's HRMS using AI, supervised by Prof. Thomas Kamalakis
Harokopio University of Athens · Grade 9.1/10, top of my class (read the graduation oath) · Scholarship holder
Thesis: an HR management system for the University, supervised by Prof. Thomas Kamalakis
Grade 19.8/20 (Excellent)
Piano, violin and choir. Made student documentaries with the Doc'n Roll team: "Nikos Skalkottas, the 3rd S" and "Foreign Hugs".
First-year undergraduate course, Department of Informatics and Telematics
Ran lab sessions on control flow, functions and pointers, wrote practice problems and coached students through debugging.
School of Digital Technology, Harokopio University of Athens
Music School of Chalkida · Elected for two terms
Presented a student documentary at the European Parliament with the Doc'n Roll team, Sep 2018.
Before tech, I spent several years in theatre and culture, first as a volunteer and then in production. I coordinated teams and kept shows running. It taught me that good solutions come from working together, and that technology is at its best when it takes slow, repetitive work off people's hands.
An inclusive theatre group of disabled and non-disabled actors
Also coordinated a two-month educational programme run with the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Culture.
Assistant production manager, then production manager
The show LEMON toured Greece and was seen by more than 16,000 people.
IT admin, assistant festival manager, production co-manager, special advisor to the board
Websites and Office 365 for the theatre, and two editions of the festival.
The quickest way to reach me. Happy to talk about research, student projects or collaborations.
General
University
