Academician Costas Synolakis graduated from Athens College in 1975. He holds a B.Sc. in Engineering and Applied Science, an M.Sc. in Civil Engineering and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1986. In 2016 he was elected a regular member of the Academy of Athens and is currently Secretary of the Division of Natural Sciences.

In 1985 he was appointed Professor of Civil, Environmental and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southern California (U.S.C.) Viterbi School of Engineering where, in 1996, he founded the USC Tsunami Center. Following his appointment as Professor of Natural Hazards and Environmental Hydraulics at the Technical University of Crete and election by the National Research and Technology Council, he served as President of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research. In 2019 he was elected Chairman of the newly established Special Scientific Committee on Climate Change in Greece, where he serves pro bono. He is also a member of the Governing Board of the Hellenic Space Center. He served as President of Athens College, assuming the position in 2020.

He has authored a large number of publications, studies, and articles in scientific journals and has conducted dozens of field missions around the world. Among the numerous academic accolades and other distinctions, he has received both in Greece and abroad is the Presidential Young Investigator Award bestowed upon him in 1989 by U.S. President George Bush and the prestigious 2019 International Coastal Engineering Award bestowed by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). In 2020 he received the Hamaguchi Award bestowed upon individuals or organizations that have made significant scientific or pragmatic contributions to the enhancement of coastal resilience against tsunami, storm surge and other coastal disasters, thus raising people’s awareness of disaster resilience. He is an internationally renowned pioneer in the field of tsunami research and other natural hazards.