Dr Vassilis Zervakis is a professor at the Department of Marine Sciences of the University of the Aegean, focused in coastal physical oceanography. Born in Thessaloniki (1964), he obtained his B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Athens, Greece (1987) and Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences of Oregon State University, U.S.A. (1993). His Ph.D. thesis dealt with the growth, propagation and dissipation of near-inertial internal waves in the surface mixed layer and the thermocline. During his military service at the Hellenic Navy, he taught military oceanographic applications at the anti-submarine Training School (1994-1995). He worked as a post-doc at AINCO-Interocean (Madrid, Spain,1995-1996) and as a research associate at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (1996-2003), participating in a multitude of international and national research projects and studies. Since 2004 he teaches Physical Oceanography at the University of the Aegean, in Mytilene, Lesvos, Greece. His research interests include medium and small-scale processes (internal waves and turbulent mixing), air-sea interaction and thermohaline circulation, coastal dynamics and physical-biological interactions in the sea. More recently his research has focused in the use of HF radars for monitoring coastal surface circulation, as well as the further development and application of Lagrangian methods in oceanography. To that aim, he has been involved in the design of novel CODE-type and oil-spill drifters. He has over 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals, as well as more than 100 presentations in International and Greek and Conferences. With more than 35 years of experience in Oceanography, he has been involved in 35 funded Research Projects. He has been the Institutional Coordinator of 14 Research Projects and General Coordinator of 4 of them.