Project Team
List of experts from the partner organizations, supporting the project
Edward Curry
Edward Curry is Vice President of the Big Data Value Association (www.BDVA.eu) a non-profit industry-led organisation with the objective of increasing the competitiveness of European Companies with data-driven innovation.
Dumitru Roman
Dumitru Roman works as a Senior Research Scientist at SINTEF AS (Norway). He has been involved in initiating, leading, and carrying out (research-intensive) projects on data management and service-oriented topics.
Nikolay is a PhD fellow at the University of Oslo and a research scientist in the Smart Data group at SINTEF Digital. His current research is focused around novel methods to support the lifecycle of Big Data pipelines processing on top of decentralized heterogeneous infrastructures.
Nikolay Nikolov
Sylvia Ilieva
Sylvia Ilieva is a professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics and Director of GATE Institute at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. Her research interests are in the areas of software platforms, software development processes, data management, and software engineering for AI. She has a good record of successful participation in over 20 European research and education projects.
Iva Krasteva
Iva Krasteva is a senior researcher in the „Software Engineering for Big Data and AI“ group at GATE Institute. Her research is focused on the methodologies for development of Big Data and AI-based systems. She has considerable experience in development of software systems and particularly in quality assurance, automated testing, requirements engineering and project management.
Petar Tomov is a researcher at the Gate Institute. He holds a Master’s degree in Physics from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the Humboldt University of Berlin. His research focused on complex dynamical systems and chaos theory, with applications on computational neuroscience.
Petar Tomov
Irena Pavlova
Irena Pavlova is Manager of the European Programmes and Projects at GATE Institute. She is responsible for the initiation, organisation and implementation of GATE’s research projects under various EU and national programmеs. She is an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Sofia University, specialized in software engineering and semantic interoperability.
Orlin Kouzov
Orlin Kouzov is the head of the Education Laboratory at the GATE Institute. In his professional career he has participated in or led over 100 national and international projects funded by the Soros Foundations, the USAID, the UNDP, the World Bank, the NATO Science Program, the KOREA Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion, the European Commission, and others.
Eleonora Getsova is Communications Manager at the GATE Institute.
Eleonora has worked at Bulgarian and foreign print and electronic media, as well as at the Information Directorate of the European Parliament in Brussels. Eleonora has participated in the development and implementation of over 10 projects, including as a Public Relations expert at the Center of Competence in clean technologies.
Eleonora Getsova
Stanislav Penkov
Stanislav Penkov is an Experienced Researcher at GATE, specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs). His work focuses on development, fine-tuning, and optimization of LLMs for applied NLP tasks, including context-aware text generation, summarization, and intelligent search. He is particularly interested in bridging AI research with production-ready solutions, ensuring innovative and practically impactful models.
Bilyana Boeva
Bilyana Boeva is a Public relations and Marketing manager with a focus on social media and promotion of GATE’s activities. Bilyana has worked as an expert in government communications at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria where she took part in the creation of the “Strategic Communications” Unit, as well as in some of the first campaigns of the Ministry, with an emphasis on policies and audiences. She has undergone training in government communications, marketing and PR conducted by experts from the USA and UK.
Rafiqul Haque
Dr. Rafiqul Haque has a 15-year career marked by diverse roles in research, development, entrepreneurship, leadership, teaching, and sales. He holds a PhD in computer science and information systems from the University of Limerick and is currently a research fellow at the University of Galway’s Insight center, focusing on interoperability, foundation models, and data governance within data spaces.
Ivo Emanuilov
Ivo Emanuilov is an interdisciplinary researcher, practicing lawyer, programmer and ICT expert with over a decade of international experience at the intersection of law, technology and innovation. His work spans intellectual property, artificial intelligence, digital twins, big data and Data Spaces, with a particular focus on their legal, regulatory and ethical dimensions. He is the founder of I/O Legal and the Experimental Regulation and Digital Policy Lab, and collaborates with research and industry organisations across Europe.
