Michael C. Constantinou is Samuel P. Capen Professor and SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.  His research interests concentrate on seismic protective systems on which he authored or co-authored over 300 papers, books and book chapters and reports.  He is best known for contributions in the development, understanding of behavior and modeling of sliding seismic isolation systems; on contributions in the understanding of the lifetime behavior of elastomeric and sliding isolators; on the development of the concept of property modification factors for performing bounding analysis of structures with seismic protective systems; on the development and verification of theories for the hysteretic heating of lead-rubber and sliding isolators; on the development of principles of scaling and similarity for the testing of seismic isolators;  on the analysis and design of structures with seismic isolation and damping systems; on the development of semi-active damping systems; on the development of practical large scale negative stiffness systems; on the development of computer software for the analysis of structures with seismic protective systems, and for his continuous participation in the development of codes and specifications.

He has four US patents issued. He received a 1988 Presidential Investigator Award and a 1991 Best Paper Award from the American Concrete Institute, was co-recipient of the 2005 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Civil Engineering Research Foundation Pankow Award for Innovation in the application of “coupled truss walls with damped linked elements in the Torre Mayor building” in Mexico City, was co-recipient of three professional practice awards: the 1994 United States General Services Administration Design Award for the structural strengthening of the US Court of Appeals Building in San Francisco, the 2002 Diamond Award and the 2002 Grand Award of the American Council of Engineering Companies, both for the retrofit design of the Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, was co-recipient of the 2015 ASCE Moisseiff Award and was the 2015 ASCE Nathan M. Newmark Medal recipient.

He has lectured and consulted extensively on the analysis and design of structures with seismic protective systems for engineers and owners in Azerbaijan, Canada, Chile, China, Cyprus, Ecuador, Germany, Greece, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Panama, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and US.  He has been involved as consultant, inspector or peer reviewer in over 100 structures with seismic protective systems worldwide.