Michael Georgiopoulos

Professional Bio:

Dr. Georgiopoulos received his Ph.D. in 1986 from the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Connecticut. He joined the CECS faculty as an electrical engineering professor in 1986. Since then, he has served in, and has been honored for, his many roles at UCF. In 2010, he was named a UCF Pegasus Professor – the most prestigious award a faculty member can receive at UCF. The honor recognizes extraordinary contributions to the UCF community through teaching, research, and service.

Dr. Georgiopoulos’ research area is machine learning with special emphasis on neural network algorithms. He has advised dozens of students (undergraduates, master’s and Ph.D.s) in research, and he has funded many of them through his extensive grant and contract efforts (he has served as a PI or Co-PI in research funding exceeding $13M during his tenure at UCF). He has published the results of his research in archival journals, conferences, and book chapters (he has authored more than 250 publications). Many of his publications are co-authored by undergraduate and graduate students that he has mentored in research. He is currently serving as one of the Associate Editors of the Neural Network journal, one of the premier journals in his field. He has also served as one of the Associate Editors of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, another premier publication venue. In 2011 he served as the Technical Co-Chair of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), one of the most well-known conferences in his research area.

Dr. Georgiopoulos is currently serving as one of the EXCEL Directors. EXCEL is an NSF funded STEP (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion) program at UCF. EXCEL has as its goal to improve the success of first time in college STEM students by providing a number of enhanced educational opportunities to its cohorts. EXCEL’s accomplishments (improved the success of its students by approximately 40%) were recognized by UCF. EXCEL is now one of the units in the Office of Undergraduate Studies, thus continuing to offer the support that EXCEL students need to succeed in STEM disciplines. EXCEL’s accomplishments have been recognized by NSF a number of times by offering EXCEL numerous opportunities to lead breakout sessions at NSF sponsored STEP conferences and by recently awarding to UCF a STEP 1B grant, called COMPASS.

Dr. Georgiopoulos has served UCF in a variety of posts. From 1999 to 2009 he was the Graduate Coordinator of the Electrical Engineering program and at times of the Electrical and Computer Engineering programs. At the time of his departure from the Graduate Coordinator post of the Electrical and Computer Engineering programs, he was overseeing approximately 150 Ph.D. students, one of the largest - if not the largest – Ph.D. programs at the time at UCF. From September 2011 to June 2012, he served as the Interim Assistant VP of Research and Commercialization, serving as a liaison between Centers/Institutes and Academic Affairs, participating actively in pilot studies assessing UCF’s economic impact in the region and helping the Office of Research and Commercialization in its efforts to support faculty proposal development activities.