Alexander V. Mantzaris received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from The University of Edinburgh, in 2006 and 2011, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Statistics Department. His research career began with investigating Bayesian methodologies that could improve the prediction accuracy in detecting horizontal gene transfer in bacteria DNA sequence alignments (2006–2010). The first research post he held involved applying machine learning techniques in a project devoted to studying the sonar behavior in bats to uncover the mechanisms in which they utilize it so effectively. His research interests include the areas of network science, big data, ad hoc network analysis, data analytics, and social behavior online.