Dr. Rizos received his BS degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece, in 1987 and his MSc and PhD degrees in Structural Engineering and Mechanics from the University of South Carolina in 1989 and 1993, respectively.  His dissertation focused in the development of Boundary Element Methods for wave propagation in solids and soils including Soil-Structure Interaction effects, where he formulated the B-Spline Fundamental Solutions for 3D Elastodynamics.  Following his PhD work, he worked as a Research Associate at USC in the R&D team that developed the computational techniques for the time history seismic analysis of underground nuclear waste tanks that led to the development of a highly efficient and user friendly software package used by the nuclear industry.  In 1997, he joined the department of Civil Engineering at the University of Nebraska Lincoln as an Assistant Professor.  In 2000 he returned to the University of South Carolina as a faculty member in Structural Mechanics and Dynamics with emphasis on Transportation Infrastructure.  In 2011 he established the Advanced Railway Technology Group and developed the research and education program in Railroad Engineering at the University of South Carolina. His recent academic and professional interests are in health monitoring, diagnostics and prognostics for track and structures and state of the art technologies in smart infrastructure, and remote sensing including stereo-vision, drones, and satellite radar imaging.  He is the recipient of numerous awards and he is involved in leadership roles in professional associations.