Main
John Zobolas
My background is in computer science, with diverse expertise in computational modeling, software engineering, survival analysis and statistical/machine learning. Being an engineer at heart, my strongest quality is careful, analytical thinking. I am deeply committed to open-source software and actively contribute to the R ecosystem as a core member of mlr3. I am currently the maintainer of mlr3proba and additional CRAN packages, including CoxBoost and fastVoteR.
Education
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
PhD in Computational Biology
Trondheim
2021 - 2017
Thesis: Software implementations allowing new approaches toward data analysis, modeling and curation of biological knowledge for Systems Medicine
[GitBook link ] [Defence video ] [Results] [Diploma]
Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB)
MSc in Computer Science
Athens
2015 - 2013
Thesis: SkyLighting Web Application with three.js [GitHub link ]
Diploma grade: 9.4/10 [Diploma] [Transcript]
National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)
M.Eng in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Athens
2013 - 2007
Thesis: Optimal Power Allocation in the uplink of Two-Tier Wireless Femtocell
Networks [GitHub link ]
Diploma grade: 8.4/10 [Diploma] [Transcript]
Research
Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational Statistics and Machine Learning
Oslo University Hospital
Oslo
End of 2026 - Oct 2025
Keywords: ML in survival analysis, high-dimensional feature selection, adverse event modeling.
Postdoc in Clinical AI for Pancreatic Cancer
Oslo University Hospital
Oslo
Sept 2025 - Jan 2022
- Project: PANCAIM (PANcreatic Cancer AI for genomics and personalized Medicine) [website]
- Authored two AI-focused EU project deliverables [Zenodo link]
- Co-organized bi-weekly seminars at the Cancer Research Institute
- ‘Visiting Fellow’ at the Center for Advanced Studies (Winter Semester 2024/25), hosted by Dr. Andreas Bender, LMU Munich [website]
Internship in Molecular AI group
AstraZeneca
Gothenburg
April 2021 - Jan 2021
- Project: Predicting bioactivity data using Matrix Factorization for target-based clustering and validation
Research stay in Molecular Interactions Team
European Bioinformatics Institute
Hinxton, England
July 2018
- Project: Extending the PSICQUIC Java-based Web service platform to include causality information of molecular interactions
Industry
Linux Systems Engineer
Commsquare
Athens
2015 - 2013
- MariaDB Performance Optimization
- Software Testing & Server Maintenance
Teaching
Intro to ML for Survival Analysis with mlr3
Oslo Bioinformatics Workshop Week [workshop link]
N/A
2023
ML course for cancer researchers
Institute for Cancer Research in Oslo
N/A
2022
- Classification trees and model ensembles [slides]
- Support Vector Machines [slides]
- Neural Networks [slides]
- Benchmarking ML models using the spam dataset [GitBook link ]
Supervision
Alberto López
PhD student
N/A
2026 - 2023
- Project: Incomplete Multi-View Clustering Algorithms
Philip Studener & Markus Goeswein
Student Assistants (LMU)
N/A
2025 - 2024
- Project: Implementation of reduction techniques for Survival Analysis in mlr3proba [GitHub link ]
Laura Szekeres
Master student
N/A
2025 - 2024
- Project: Cancer Treatment gets Logical: An Ensemble Boolean Modeling Pipeline in Python [PyDrugLogics ]
Tanguy Dumontier
Apprentice Data Engineer
N/A
2024
- Project: Optimizing Incomplete Multi-view Clustering: From MATLAB to Python [iMML ]
Anjana Bhat
Master student
N/A
2024
- Project: Optimizing Clustering Metrics for Patient Stratification using Heuristic Approaches [GitHub link ]
Hedda Fjell Scheel
Veterinary Research Student (Forskerlinjestudent)
N/A
2024 - 2023
- Project: Genetic Heterogeneity of Canine Mammary Tumors [GitHub link ]
Selected Talks
Intro to Machine Learning for Survival Analysis with mlr3
userR! 2024 conference tutorial [GitHub link]
Salzburg
July 2024
Examining properness in the external validation of survival models with squared and logarithmic losses
NORA Annual conference 2024 [slides]
Kristiansand
June 2024
Selected Publications
mlr3extralearners: Expanding the mlr3 Ecosystem with Community-Driven Learner Integration
[Journal of Open Source Software]
N/A
2025
PyDrugLogics: A Python Package for Predicting Drug Synergies Using Boolean Models
[Journal of Open Source Software]
N/A
2025
Fine tuning a logical model of cancer cells to predict drug synergies: combining manual curation and automated parameterization
[Frontiers in Systems Biology]
N/A
2023
Boolean function metrics can assist modelers to check and choose logical rules
[Journal of Theoretical Biology]
N/A
2022
CausalTAB: the PSI-MITAB 2.8 updated format for signalling data representation and dissemination
N/A
2019
Online Books, Blogs
Survival modeling in mlr3 using Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART)
N/A
2023
Awards/Scholarships
Olav Raagholt and Gerd Meidel Raagholt Grant
Received funding (30,000 NOK) to support the project “Advancing Machine Learning Methods for Survival Analysis in Cancer Research”
N/A
2025
Astri and Birger Torsteds Grant to Fight Cancer
Received funding (50,000 NOK) to purchase IT equipment for cancer research related to the PANCAIM EU project
N/A
2024
Program “Study with Scholarship”, EqualSociety
Scholarship for the MSc in Computer Science (AUEB)
N/A
2013
Program “Great Moment for Education”, Eurobank
Award for the highest grade in the Panhellenic Exams
N/A
2007
Recreational
Piano
N/A
N/A
- YouTube channel
- Concerts for cancer patients, Dec 2025 (Solo & 4-hands with Liliane Christ)
Outdoor Activities
N/A
N/A