Dr Siempos has pursued an academic career of clinician-scientist in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. He graduated (M.D.) in the top 1% of his class from the University of Thessaloniki-Medical School, Greece and earned a doctorate (D.Sc.) with Excellence in Critical Care Medicine from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. He won a number of national honorary scholarships and early awards. He trained at the Department of Critical Care and Pulmonary Services, Evangelismos Hospital, Athens before he moves to the United States, firstly in Harvard Medical School and then in Weill Cornell Medicine, as post-doctoral fellow under the mentoring of Dr Augustine Choi. While keeping his affiliation and research activities with Weill Cornell Medicine, he returned to Greece where he was awarded with a prestigious grant from the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation.

Since his graduation, as a clinician, he enjoys caring for critically ill patients on mechanical ventilation. The clinical challenges of such patients incited his interest in the main reasons (namely, acute respiratory distress syndrome due to respiratory tract infections and sepsis) for and complications (namely, ventilator-associated pneumonia and ventilator-induced lung injury) of mechanical ventilation. As a researcher, he strives to understand these interconnected clinical entities using a variety of appropriate methodological tools, such as animal models; translational research; clinical outcomes research and meta-analyses. His publication record includes over 95 peer-reviewed papers and has received over 3900 citations in the literature with Hirsch index h= 37 (according to Scopus). Trying to maintain a broad perspective, he is also interested in history of medicine. He enjoys learning from interactions with other clinicians and/or scientists and he is committed to mentoring.