Nick Aravas was born (1957) and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece, where he studied Mechanical Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and graduated in 1980. He received his M.S. (1982) and Ph.D. (1984) in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). During his graduate studies he worked as a Teaching and Research Assistant, and in 1982 he received the “J. O. Smith Award for teaching excellence”, which is presented every year by the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the UIUC to the “outstanding young teacher in Engineering Mechanics”.

     In 1985 he worked as a Senior Engineer in Hibbitt, Karlsson and Sorensen, Inc., the developers of the ABAQUS general purpose finite element program. His academic career started in 1986 when he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics of the University of Pennsylvania (PENN), where he taught for 11 years. At PENN he held also a secondary appointment in the department of Materials Science and Engineering. His research focuses in the areas of Mechanics of Materials and Computational Mechanics. He is the author or numerous papers in scientific journals and serves as a reviewer for many scientific journals in the areas of mechanics and materials. His work is recognized internationally and has received a large number of citations by other scientists. In 1987 he received the “Presidential Young Investigator Award” presented by the President of the USA “in recognition of ability and potential for contributing to the future vitality of the scientific and engineering effort of the Nation”.

     In 1996 he was appointed “Professor of Computational Mechanics of Structures” at the University of Thessaly (UTH) in Greece. Upon his return to Greece he moved to Volos, is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Laboratory of Mechanics and Strength of Materials.

     From 1999 to 2002 he was a member of the first elected University Administration and held the positions of Vice Rector for Research and Development and Chairman of the Research Committee of the University of Thessaly. When the Engineering School at the University of Thessaly was formed, he was elected as the first Dean of Engineering and served form 2004 to 2007. Prof. Aravas has served also as Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and as Acting Chairman of the Departments of Civil Engineering and Computer and Communication Engineering at UTH.

     In 2005 Prof. Aravas was a member of the team of UTH faculty that wrote the proposal to the government for the establishment of a Research Center in the region of Thessaly. The “Center for Research and Technology — Thessaly” (CE.RE.TE.TH.) was founded in 2006 and Prof. Aravas is currently the Director of the “Mechatronics Institute” in CERETETH.

     Prof. Aravas has worked as an engineering consultant for various companies in the areas of mechanical and aerospace structures, metal forming, ceramic- and metal-powder processing, analysis and design of composite materials, computer manufacturing, etc.