Celebrating Yiannis Andreopoulos, Distinguished Professor Mechanical Engineering

Born in Athens, Greece, on March 19, 1948, Yiannis earned a degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, and Master of Science and D.I.C. and Ph.D. degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from the Department of Aeronautics of the Imperial College, London University. He held postdoctoral research appointments at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, and at Princeton University before accepting a professorship at The City College of New York, Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he served as Michael Pope Professor of Energy Research, a title awarded to him many years ago in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to research. Earlier this year, the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York, by unanimous consent, recognized Dr. Andreopoulos’ life-long achievements with the tittle of Distinguished Professor, the highest academic honor that the University can bestow upon faculty who have reached exceptional scholarly achievement.

At CCNY, Yiannis established the Advanced Fluid Dynamics research facility; his initial work focussed on characterizing the interaction between shock waves and various turbulence regimes. His experimental work using the large-scale shock tube showed that enstrophy, vortex stretching/tilting vector, and dilatational stretching vector to exhibit a rather strong intermittent behavior while interacting with shock waves. His later work focussed on understanding near-wall turbulence in high Reynolds number flows. His experimental work contributed significantly to computational solvers, particularly in areas related to fluid-structure interactions and immersed-boundary layer methods. In his final years, Yiannis worked on energy harvesting in the wake regions using piezoelectric materials. His research earned him numerous accolades: Yiannis was the Michael Pope Professor of Mechanical Engineering and was later appointed as the Distinguished Professor. He was an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 2008 he received the Charles Sharpe Beecher Prize of the Aerospace Industries Divisional Board of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK. Overall, his work in the field of fluid dynamics contributed to advancements in energy, health, transportation, and infrastructure.

Through the years, Yiannis graduated numerous Ph.D. students who now serve as academics or researchers in prominent industries. He also served as the head of the Ph.D. recruitment program. Yiannis set up the state-of-the-art Aero Thermal lab that is now an integral part of the undergraduate curriculum; he left his mark on every fluids course that is currently taught in the Mechanical Engineering department.