I was born and raised in Athens, Greece (this is not my home, but it is nearby). I owe the foundations of my education to my parents, Spyros and Vasiliki, as well as to some excellent teachers at my school in Greece, Athens College.
Upon graduating from high school, I was extremely fortunate to be given the opportunity to study mathematics at Trinity College and the Centre for Mathematical Sciences of the University of Cambridge. What began as a three-year long journey towards a Bachelors degree ended up being eight wonderful years during which I also completed my Masters and Ph.D. degrees, the latter under the influential supervision of Prof. Athanassios S. Fokas. My further development as a mathematician was largely and crucially shaped by my postdoctoral mentor at the University of Notre Dame, Prof. Alex Himonas, and later on by Prof. Gino Biondini, my postdoctoral mentor at SUNY Buffalo.
I spent roughly one quarter of my childhood at the greek island of Paros, where I still try to go for a couple of weeks every summer. I really enjoy playing and following sports, including basketball, football (the one with the spherical ball) and swimming. My true passion, however, is spearfishing and exploring the coast of Paros and neighboring islands with our small family boat.
My name: The spelling of my first name creates a lot of confusion among my colleagues, students and friends, so please do not feel bad if you are confused too! Let me try to explain things, since I am actually partially responsible for this confusion.
My formal greek name is Διονύσιος (Dionysios), which comes from ancient Greece (a notable example being the famous Dionysius of Syracuse) and draws its roots from the greek god of wine and "partying" Dionysus (Διόνυσος). Impressively, however, the Greek Orthodox Church has managed to associate every single ancient greek name to one of their saints (this is not a joke – in fact, those few names that have escaped a specific saint are honored by the church on what is called the "All Saints Day") and hence I was named in honor of Saint Dionysios of Zakynthos (who, by the way, has his very own church at nearby Overland Park!).
Anyway, back to the spelling saga, because greek names are so long, the "everyday" version of my greek name is Διονύσης (Dionysis) – a drastic shortening of the formal version by one single letter! As if things are not confusing enough, when I moved to Cambridge for my studies I decided to follow the advice of a former teacher to spell my name as Dionyssios (respectively, Dionyssis) instead of Dionysios (respectively, Dionysis), in order to ensure that it is pronounced correctly. Yes, I completely agree with you that the "double s" spelling makes absolutely no difference, but little did I know back then! This is how I ended up with four different versions of my first name which look more or less the same. Nowadays, two of them have survived: Dionyssios as my formal name under which I publish my research papers, and Dionyssis for everything else. Feel free to use whichever version you prefer and hopefully you are a bit less confused now!