Panos Markopoulos

Level of study: PhD '14

Hometown: Athens, Greece

Level of Study: Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University at Buffalo (2015). I obtained my Engineering Diploma (5-year program) and M.Sc. degrees, both in Electronic and Computer Engineering, from the Technical University of Crete (TUC), Chania, Greece. 

Why did you choose to study electrical engineering?

Since my childhood I had an innate urge to explore the unknown and invent new things. Back then, the unknown was how simple things around the household work --such as the the door-bell and my father's tools-- and my inventions were limited to new toys made out of simple everyday material that I could find in our storage house. With the same approach to life, I grew up having always a critical, investigating eye on technology and how it can evolve to help even more effectively make our lives safer, more convenient, and more pleasant. Therefore, when the time was for me to choose for my future career, at the age of 18, there was no dilemma. I knew I wanted to be an engineer. And if you are particularly interested in developing new technologies, there is no better engineering discipline than Electrical Engineering. 

What are your areas of interest in EE?

Electrical Engineering comprises many fields of technology, such as Wireless Communication Networks, Signal Processing, Optics, Photonics, Energy, and Solid-state Electronics, to name some. The fields that I am most interested in are Wireless Communications and  Signal Processing. My PhD thesis was on the design of new tools for robust signal processing from few and/or faulty data. 

What makes UB Electrical Engineering special?

In August 2011, I was very fortunate, after the completion of my M.Sc. studies in Greece, to be admitted to the PhD program of the Electrical Engineering Department, at UB.

Pursuing my PhD at UB was certainly an eye-opening and, in many aspects, highly rewarding experience that I will always remember of. It was in UB and, in particular, the department of Electrical Engineering, that I learned how to be an academic, how to conduct research, and how to communicate my work. The Department of Electrical Engineering, having recruited in its faculty some of the most distinguished, on a global scale, scholars in the discipline, gave me the opportunity to learn and be advised from the best and form academic role models to be looking up to. Finally, the outstanding student services and highly knowledgeable and helpful administrative personnel of the EE department --and UB in general-- gave me all the support I needed to focus on my work efficiently and pursue my potential.

As far as the extracurricular life at UB is concerned, UB's diverse environment, with students from all over the world, and extended list of student associations, offered me a great chance to socialize, make new friends, and acquaint myself with a great number of different cultures and activities. 

What career have you pursued?

I am an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Microelectronic Engineering Department of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).  I conduct research in the fields of Wireless Communications, Signal Processing, and Imaging. Currently, I am vey happy to be teaching a graduate level course on Digital Data Communication.