Dr. Emmanouil Proestakis (EP), born in May 1985, graduated from the Applied Mathematics and Physics Department of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 2011. He received his M.Sc. in the field of “Environmental Physics” from the Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP) of the University of Bremen (Germany) in late 2013, where he also worked as academic assistant for ~18 months (IUP). Accordingly, he acquired his Ph.D. diploma from the Section of Applied Physics of the Physics Department of the University of Patras (UoP) in mid-2018.

Since 2014 he is contacting research at the Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development (IERSD / 2014-2015) and the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing (IAASARS / 2016-precent day) of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA). His main activities include (1) exploitation of advanced ground-based and space-borne active and passive remote sensing observations, sophisticated techniques, and theoretical models towards the development, update, upgrade, and maintenance of global and multiyear Climate Data Records (CDR), aerosol products, and applications (e.g. ESA-LIVAS CDR; Amiridis et al., 2015) and (2) validation of satellite-based Earth Observational systems (i.e. ISS-CATS, Aeolus-ALADIN, EarthCARE-ATLID; Proestakis et al., 2019/cal-val campaigns (CV Sect. “Publications” and “Experimental Campaigns”)).

To date, his work on Environmental Physics, with focus on remote sensing of atmospheric aerosols, has been published in a variety of studies, including among others, the four-dimensional evolution of atmospheric dust aerosols in the atmosphere (Amiridis et al., 2015; Marinou et al., 2017; Proestakis et al., 2018; Aslanoğlu et al., 2022), the effect of aerosols on phytoplankton (Li et al., 2018) and in assessing biochemical indices of marine particles in the open Mediterranean Sea (Chaikalis et al., 2021), on investigating the impact of the inhalable component of dust on Air Quality (Amiridis et al., 2014; Proestakis et al., 2024) and on extreme meteorological phenomena (Proestakis et al., 2014; 2015), on the effect of aerosols on energy/solar radiation (Kosmopoulos et al., 2017; 2018; Masoom et al., 2021; Fountoulakis et al., 2022; 2024), on the impact of aerosols on meteorology (Solomos et al., 2018), extreme weather phenomena (Solomos et al., 2019), and aviation (Ryder et al., 2024), and on establishing novel Earth Observation satellite-based products (Chimot et al., 2017; Georgoulias et al., 2020; Gkikas et al., 2022; 2023).

At has been awarded/supported as PI of the AXA Research Fund for postdoctoral researchers EO4AQ-DustFM fellowship-project, aiming to establish a novel Earth Observation-based near-global and multiyear Climate Data Record of the fine-mode and coarse-mode components of atmospheric pure-dust and assess the impact of the different modes in a wide range of potential applications (Proestakis et al., 2024), strengthening and widening his competences to manage a research project from Kick-Off to End-of-Activity and aiding him with the expertise needed to become an independent scientist. During the period extending between 02/2020-01/2022 he was also PI of a project awarded by the “State Scholarships Foundation” (IKY) for postdoctoral researchers – (MIS 5033021), investigating the impact of mineral dust on ocean biogeochemistry. He has worked in several research projects, both as Work Package leader (i.e., ESA L2A+ and CORAL projects) and as a researcher (i.e., ESA NEWTON, SNF EKAD3, Marco Polo, TALOS).

At present (Kick Off on June 2025), he is PI of the European Space Agency (ESA) “Ocean Research enhancement through EarthCARE Observations of dust” (OREO) project, between NOA, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), and the Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR).

Summarizing, EP scientific expertise lies in EO of amphoteric aerosols – with focus on the dust component – and exploitation of the dust-related environmental impacts. He has participated in 12 research projects, he has 40 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals (h-index: 18, ~1130 citations, Source: Scopus; 12/06/2025), he has 70 announcements in conferences, has worked as WP-leader in several research projects, and he is PI of the EO4AQ-DustFM project supported by the competitive AXA Research Fund Fellowships for postdoctoral researchers framework and the ESA-OREO project.

Aerosols, Satellite and ground aerosol retrievals, Aerosol-radiation interactions.