The dolphin has darted to the surface. It slips through the air, salt water pouring off its body.  

In a splash it will be gone.  

But not from the photograph taken by Professor Dimitris Zafiropoulos, who passed away unexpectedly on November 6.  

Like the rest of the oceanographic and environmental work he carried out over the course of 35 years, the snapshot of the dolphin unassumingly captures life and holds it up for you to see. Like the rest of his work, too, it ensures that Dr. Zafiropoulos will still be there, just beneath the surface, for those who knew him as colleague, mentor, teacher: friend.  

“He took pleasure in sharing his experiences and knowledge with others,” mused Dr. Anastasia Misseyanni, a professor of environmental science at Deree, as she sat in the lab she had shared with Zafiropoulos for six of the 15 years she knew him. “After almost every discussion that we had, he would bring me related books and articles and come up with an idea or an action plan.” 

Zafiropoulos’s effortless dedication to helping people announced itself in his ready smile.  

“The quality of his personality was evident in the way he interacted with his colleagues,” said Vicky Georgolopoulou, a Deree instructor who met Zafiropoulos when she started teaching physics at the Downtown campus in 1990. “Being the older, more experienced science instructor, Dimitris could have easily adopted an authoritative and judgmental manner. Instead, his kind and friendly attitude helped me make a smooth start at the College.”  

In the years that followed she would often turn to him for advice. “I looked up to him as a colleague and never ceased to admire his genuine interest in his subjects and his research, and the way he managed to achieve things without losing his smile,” she said.  

Zafiropoulos was one of the first people Leslie Jones-Michail – today head of Deree’s Music area – met when she started teaching at the Downtown campus. “I remember how at ease he was, casual, open and friendly,” she said. 

Zafiropoulos, who held a BSc in chemistry, an MSc in oceanography, and a Ph.D. in environmental chemistry, wrote two books on marine life. But the athletic professor with the wiry frame didn’t get his start in a library. As a child, he would go for walks in the mountains to find respite from the pain of watching his father battle poor health.  

As he grew up, the outdoors blossomed into a confirmation of life. “He always expressed himself by talking about nature,” said Misseyanni. “And he always expressed himself in nature. He couldn’t stand still. If he woke up early, he might work in the garden. And he was always fixing things – like his boat – or hiking, or diving, or spear fishing, or riding his bike in the mountains. Whatever he did, it was always related to nature.” 

A lot of what he did centered on dolphins and whales, “probably the most fascinating animals of this blue planet,” he wrote in his recently published book, Dolphins and Whales of the Greek Sea, “the result of 12 years of field research, experiences and adventures.”  

In it, Zafiropoulos sketched the beauty he saw: “The dark shape of a dolphin passing under the keel of the boat under the starlit sky and a Striped Dolphin playing carefree with the waves in the endless blue sea are beyond description.”  

Like that boat under the starlit sky, his pursuits were perhaps ultimately for, and about, people. He wrote outdoor adventure articles for outdoor adventurers, in ocean-spray magazines with names like Inflatable Boat and Fishing and Inflatable Boat. In an article in the latter, he described a harrowing escape from a storm at sea that ended in ouzo poured from a small bottle and kalamari grilled over glowing embers in a cozy Evia taverna.

His love of experience that you could sink your teeth into guided him as a professor. He took Deree students on dolphin-spotting trips so they could season science with life and taste it for themselves.  

“Whether it was diving at Vouliagmeni Lake or drifting in his boat on the Gulf of Evia, he challenged the students in his oceanography courses not only to observe nature but also to feel it,” said Dimitris Georgas, a professor of oceanography and environmental science at Deree who worked with Zafiropoulos for over 15 years and was one of his best friends.   

Georgas said the Downtown campus field trips and lab activities that his friend organized inspired students and staff members to engage with science: “He was an excellent mountain guide, and he encouraged the Environmental, Trekking and Ski Clubs to take trips where the actual contact with nature would become the prime teacher.”   

Using nature as a primary source for teaching, and not just for research, helped him open people up to the world beyond their daily routines, reflected Dr. Paraskevi Papadopoulou, a Deree biology professor.

“Dimitris wasn’t a simple oceanographer or environmental scientist,” she said. “He lived his life passionately, as a true scientist and a wise man should do. He has positively influenced the lives of many people, including the lives of many of his students, by exposing them to this other way of life. Some even managed to free themselves from the city limits. That’s what he wanted deep down. To increase everyone’s awareness of the interconnectedness that exists between humans and nature.”  

Zafiropoulos shared his passion for life beyond the city limits with his Italian wife, Livia Merlini, who holds a Ph.D. in marine biology. Together they put Odysseus to shame, sailing thousands of miles of Greek seas over the course of a dozen years in their 23-foot rigid inflatable boat, seeking out, studying and taking pictures of dolphins and whales.  

Anyone can find dolphins in a calm sea, if they have “the will, patience [and] perseverance,” and keep their eyes peeled, Zafiropoulos wrote. He similarly attuned himself to people. “He was a good listener,” said Misseyanni, even when he was doing the talking. “He could feel his audience. He knew when to take a break in a lecture because people were getting tired, or would make a joke if he felt people were getting bored.”

He liked to communicate and exchange ideas and he was good at it, she said. “He was the kind of person who makes complicated things simple through his simple, direct way of presenting them, and his students appreciated him for that.” 

His colleagues appreciated his efforts to build the department: setting up the environmental labs at the downtown campus and helping improve the lab at the Aghia Paraskevi campus; developing the new environmental studies major; proposing new courses. “His contribution was there in all our endeavors,” said Papadopoulou.

Todd Fritch, vice president for academic development at Deree, remembers his first meeting with Zafiropoulos after assuming his post at Deree in 2008: “After he learned I was responsible for overseeing new academic program development at the College, he said if I could help him realize his dream of over 20 years to create an environmental degree program at Deree, he would be forever grateful.”

When Zafiropoulos learned that Dr. Fritch was a geologist who had placed the creation of an environmental program at the College at the top of his list, he became excited. “He was a critical member of the committee that has worked to create the newly proposed BS in Environmental Studies degree,” said Fritch.  

Zafiropoulos literally carried his enthusiasm with him. When Jones-Michail occasionally ran into him at lunch or a meeting, he would pull out photos he’d taken of dolphins. “I remember feeling how lucky this person is,” she said. “I looked at his pictures and felt a strong envy for a person who got to work in the natural world, and great admiration for a man who could act on his passion for nature and the preservation of the environment.” 

Dr. Katerina Thomas, Vice President and Dean of Faculty, said he made a lasting impression on his students and colleagues. “We will always remember his enthusiasm and poise, his collegial attitude and discretion,” she said. “It was not by chance that he chose to focus his research on the gentle and beautiful dolphins."

Zafiropoulos also garnered respect through his scientific achievements. “Dimitris and Livia helped to define the state of the marine environment in the Mediterranean, through his research on marine pollution done for the U.N. Environmental Program - Mediterranean Action Plan,” said Georgas. “Dimitris was a pioneer. As an outdoor scientist in the early 1980s, he went around sampling for pollution in the Greek seas and estuaries, at a time when the word ‘environment’ wasn’t in common use.” 

Beneath the surface of the practical scientist who enjoyed studying and exploring the crests of nature, resided a father and educator who cared and fretted. Papadopoulou said he seemed anxious during her last conversation with him. About what his two children would do with their lives. About his students: “He wanted to find new ways of increasing motivation. He wanted to make students see our connection with nature, and he insisted that we professors not teach over the heads of our students.”

The conversation ended abruptly.

“The phone rang,” said Papadopoulou. “His voice changed. It became soft and loving. His wife was coming to get him. He had to go.”