Biographical Sketch of Professor Panagiotopoulos

Abstract

Professor Panagiotis (Panos) D. Panagiotopoulos was born in Thessaloniki, Greece on the 1st of January 1950. He had an excellent education in Thessaloniki, where he attended the model high school of the Aristotle University (1955–1967). His father, Dionysios, a mathematician, and his mother Kaliopi, a physicist, who were both high school teachers, provided him with a solid basis of knowledge in and love for the physical sciences. He studied civil engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1967–1972) and graduated with the highest distinction. Under the supervision of Professor Georgios Nitsiotas he began working on unilateral or inequality problems in mechanics and completed his doctoral dissertation (1974) at the same University. As an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (1974–1977) and later (1977–1978) as head of a research group supported by the German Research Society (DFG) he continued his research at the Institute of Mechanics of the Rhein Westfalia Technical University of Aachen (RWTH Aachen), where he completed his Habilitation. Subsequently, he was appointed as Full Professor and Director of the Institute of Steel Structures in Professor Panagiotis (Panos) D. Panagiotopoulos.