The University of South Carolina welcomes President-elect Michael Amiridis, who will serve as the university’s 30th president.
Michael Amiridis, chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago since 2015, was named the 30th president of the University of South Carolina.
Amiridis was unanimously chosen Friday, Jan. 14, by the university’s board of trustees to lead the state’s flagship university system.
The move is a homecoming for Amiridis, who has spent more than two decades on the Columbia campus as a professor of chemical engineering, department chair, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing, and executive vice president of the university for academic affairs and provost. He left college to lead the Chicago institution in 2015.
“I am thrilled and honored to return to the University of South Carolina as the next president,” said Amiridis. “Through scholars, research, and its vibrant culture, the university system is critically important to the people of South Carolina and to the future of the state. I feel privileged to be able to lead this great institution.
Amiridis, 59, is from Greece and came to the United States to pursue graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned his doctorate. in chemical engineering in 1991. He then spent a few years in industry, working as a research engineer for WR Grace and Co., before coming to Columbia in August 1994 as an assistant professor of chemical engineering.
His wife, Ero Aggelopoulou-Amiridis, and their children also have ties to the University of South Carolina. Aggelopoulou-Amiridis earned her masters and doctorate at the university, while their daughter, Aspasia, earned her bachelor’s degree in 2019 and their son, Dimitri, is a member of the UofSC class of 2022.
The President-elect in a nutshell
| Last name | Michel Amiridis |
| Age | 59 |
| Hometown | Kavala, a coastal town in northern Greece. American citizen |
| Position | Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) since 2015 |
| Schooling | Undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki in Greece in 1985; PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991 |
| Staff | He and his wife, Ero Aggelopoulou-Amiridis, have two children, Aspasia and Dimitri. |
| Links with the UofSC | Amiridis spent more than two decades in Colombia, serving as a professor of engineering, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing, and the university’s executive vice president for academic affairs and provost. His wife and children are all UofSC graduates. |
