People

Areas of interest

• Natural Language Processing
• Machine Translation
• Multimodal Signal Analysis
• Embodied Communication Semantics
• Assistive Robotics
• Human-Machine Interaction
• Assistive Interfaces
• Sign Language Technologies

Eleni Efthimiou is Research Director at the Institute for Language and Speech Processing (ILSP) of the ATHENA RC, where she works since 1992.

In 1986, she received her PhD in Generative Linguistics from the University of Salzburg (Austria), in the domain of Physical and Human Sciences. At ILSP, she has served all major research domains, including Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Translation (MT), Educational Technology and Electronic Lexicography.

In 1999, she founded the ILSP Sign Language Technologies Team (slt.ilsp.gr). Since then, she has focused on sign language data collection and processing, as well as on synthetic signing technology and the development of assistive tools and accessible interfaces, mostly addressing accessibility needs of the Greek Sign Language (GSL) users’ community.

Since 2006, she has extended her research interests in the study of multimodal human communication during natural interaction in various environments, and the possible transfer of multimodal features of human communication in human-robot interaction (HRI).

In parallel to her research activity, she taught for a number of years at the University of Crete and the University of Athens, while she gives invited lectures and seminars in Greece and abroad.

Currently, she heads the Department of Embodied Interaction and Robotics at ILSP.