Nicholas Patrikalakis is the Kawasaki Professor of Engineering in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the Department of Ocean Engineering.

Regarding his education, Patrikalakis got his Diploma in Naval Architecture, Marine and Mechanical Engineering in 1977 from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. In 1983 he got his Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

As far as his professional experience goes, in 1974 he worked in the Design Office of the Hellenic Shipyards in Scaramanga. In 1976 he worked for the National Maritime Institute in Feltham, England. He was a Research and Teaching Assistant from 1977 to 1983 in MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering. From 1983 to 1985 he was a Postdoctoral Assistant in MIT at the Department of Ocean Engineering, while from 1985 to 1990 he was an Assistant Professor and from 1990 to 1995 he was an Associate Professor, again in the same department.

His team is a part of Singapore-M.I.T. Alliance for Research and Technology, or Smart. They build stingray-like robots that collect data to fight ocean algae; test beds are right off the coast. “This lab was specially built for us with totally new, state-of-the-art equipment,” he said. “That doesn’t happen in Boston.”

He has received many honors and awards throughout his career, among which we can mention the following: 1972-77: Award for Academic Excellence from the Institution of Public Scholarships of Greece, 1972-77: Award for Academic Excellence from the Technical Chamber of Greece, 1988-90: Doherty Professorship in Ocean Utilization, 1994-95: Computer Aided Design Referee Award and 1996-present: Kawasaki Professorship.

He is also a member of many professional societies and institutions: American Society of Mechanical Engineering, Association for Computing Machinery, Computer Graphics Society, IEEE Computer Society, International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers and more.