Professor Kyriazis Pitilakis graduated from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and took his PhD in Ecole Centrale de Paris. He has more than thirty-five years of intensive academic, research and professional experience in civil, earthquake and geotechnical engineering.  He has been chairman of the Technical Committee “Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Associated Problems” (TC203) of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), past President of the Greek Society of Earthquake Engineering and since June 2018 President of the European Association of Earthquake Engineering (EAEE).

Coordinator and scientific responsible of numerous European research projects, namely EUROSEISTEST (http://euroseis.civil.auth.gr) and SYNER-G (www.syner-g.eu), he has a long experience in European research activities in earthquake engineering, geotechnical engineering, risk assessment and management of civil engineering structures. His main fields of scientific, research and professional activities are the following: Geotechnical and earthquake engineering, seismic design of foundations and infrastructures, soil dynamics, engineering seismology, site effects, microzonation studies, strong ground motion, vulnerability and risk assessment of civil engineering structures (buildings, utilities, port facilities and infrastructures), lifeline earthquake engineering, vulnerability assessment and strengthening of monuments.

Professor Kyriazis Pitilakis organized several successful international conferences in geotechnical and earthquake engineering and recently the 16th European Conference of Earthquake Engineering, Thessaloniki 2018 (www.16ecee.org ). He is member of the editorial advisory board in Springer editions (Geotechnical, Geological and Earthquake Engineering), reviewer and member of the editorial board of numerous scientific journals (>30) and member of many international societies in earthquake and geotechnical engineering.

Author of more than 600 scientific papers (h-factor 40) published in peer review scientific journals and proceedings, co-author in several books and editor of four books published in Springer Editions. With long experience in drafting seismic design codes Professor Kyriazis Pitilakis is officially involved in the ongoing revision of EC8 (Part 1 and Part 5), while he has been invited as international expert for the revision of the Chilean seismic code (2016) and the ongoing development of the seismic codes in Malaysia, Hong-Kong and Australia (2017).

He gave lectures in China, Japan, Malaysia, Chile, Russia and in many European countries, while he has been invited keynote lecturer in several international and national conferences. Among the most recent ones are the 2^nd European Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (2014), the 16^th European Conference of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (2015), the Turkish conference in Earthquake Engineering (2015), the 6^th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering (2015), the International Conference of Performance Based Design in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering (2017), the Italian National Conference of Earthquake Engineering (2017) and the National Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Romania (2017).

Honors: Chevalier des Palmes Academiques, French Republic.