Professor Kostas Synolakis, member of the US National Academy of Engineers

Yesterday, the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) proceeded with the election of new academics for the year 2023.

Among the academics and the professor Kostas Synolakiswhose election was in recognition of his work in the development of computational methods and early warning systems for tsunamis and his advisory work to governments and crisis management agencies.

The election of a scientist as a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Engineers (NAE), or the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) is the highest honor for natural scientists of all disciplines in America.

According to the Academy’s announcement, the members are a select group of American and international senior professionals in business, academia and the public sector who have distinguished themselves for technical achievements and pioneering contributions in their fields.

NAE members volunteer their services to initiatives that help guide the development of federal laws and regulations, improve the effectiveness of government programs, shape the direction of research in various fields, and contribute to public awareness and dialogue on issues of critical importance.

The election process lasts more than a year, is completely secret, without the candidate knowing about his candidacy.

Of the rigorously selected candidates nominated by academics from all fields of the natural sciences, less than one in ten are elected to the three National Academies. When reduced to the total population of potential candidates among academics, researchers and professionals, about one in 1,000 is elected.

Kostas Synolakis graduated from the College of Athens in 1975. He continued his studies at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), from where he received the degrees of Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in Engineering and Applied Science, Master of Science (M. Sc.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the same subject in 1986.

In 2016 he was elected a regular member of the Academy of Athens and is secretary of the Academy’s Class of Positive Sciences. Since 1985 he has been a professor of Civil, Environmental and Aerospace Engineering at the Viterbi School of Engineering of the University of Southern California (USC), while in 1996 he founded the first Tsunami Research Center. He served as the president of the Hellenic Marine Research Center and as a professor of Natural Disasters and Environmental Hydromechanics at the Technical University of Crete. In 2019, he was chosen as the unpaid chairman of the Special Scientific Committee to Combat Climate Change in Greece. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Space Center. Since 2020, he has taken over as director/President of the Athens College.

His research and writing work is extensive. He has authored five books and published a large number of studies and articles in scientific journals.

He has led dozens of field missions around the world, while at the same time he has received many international academic awards. For example, in 1989 he was awarded the Presidential Young Investigator Award by President George W. Bush and in 2019 he received the top prize of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in coastal engineering.

In 2020, he received the Hamaguchi Prize, which is awarded to individuals or organizations that, through scientific research and pragmatic practices, have made a significant contribution to strengthening coastal resistance to tidal waves (tsunamis), storms and other coastal disasters, as well as to information and resilience of people in natural disasters. In the last decade he has been dealing with changes in the intensity and frequency of extreme events when the climate changes.

Professor Synolakis has participated in the production of dozens of documentaries, which have been shown on major international networks such as ABC, Discovery Channel, BBC, National Geographic, History Channel and ZDF. He has written dozens of articles with multiple interviews in Greek newspapers and in the USA in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, among others.

RES-EMP

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