Spiros Agathos - Biography#

Spiros Agathos is Professor Emeritus at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He served as Rector and President of the Governing Board (2019) and as Inaugural Dean of Biological Sciences and Engineering (2015-2019) of Yachay Tech University, the first research-intensive university in Ecuador and the Andean Region of South America (2019). Before that he was Professor (1993-2015) and Chair of Bioengineering (1998-2010) at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He obtained a Dipl. Eng. in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, a M. Eng. in Chemical Engineering from McGill University, and a Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was a faculty member at the University of Western Ontario, Canada (1982-1985) and at Rutgers University, New Jersey (1985-1993) and has served as a visiting professor in Europe and the Americas. He has published over 200 articles, 5 books and 4 patents. He has received over 70 competitive grants, is Editor or Editorial Board member of many journals and serves as member or chair of grant panels as well as on international committees for science and technology policy and for institutional accreditation. He is advising governments, agencies, trans-national bodies and industry, while his former students and postdocs have significant academic and industrial positions across the globe. His research is recognised by his election as Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM), the International Water Association (IWA), the American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the Society for Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology (SIMB). He is the recipient of the 2019 Waksman Outstanding Teaching Award for his role as mentor and educator. His research interests include microbial and animal cell cultures in bioreactors, biocatalyst development, bioprocess optimization, bioreactor design and scale-up, pollutant biodegradation and site bioremediation, microbial ecogenomics, and biotechnology for sustainability.