Professor Kyriazis Pitilakis is a Professor in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece. He took his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from the same University and received his Ph.D. from Ecole Centrale de Paris. He has more than 35 years of intensive academic, research and professional experience in earthquake and geotechnical engineering. Currently Vice President of the European Association of Earthquake Engineering (EAEE), he has been Chairman and now Vice Chairman of the Technical Committee "Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Associated Problems" (TC203) of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), and past President of the Greek Society of Earthquake Engineering and the Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology in Greece (ITSAK). He served as Head of the Civil Engineering Department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and he currently acts as the Director of the Laboratory of Soil Mechanics, Foundations and Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering of the Civil Engineering Department of Aristotle University (http://sdgee.civil.auth.gr/). Professor Kyriazis Pitilakis has vast experience in European research activities, acting as the coordinator of large European projects like EUROSEISTEST (http://euroseis.civil.auth.gr) and SYNER-G (www.syner-g.eu), and as participant in more than 30 European and national research projects. His main research and professional interests are in geotechnical and earthquake engineering, seismic design of foundations and infrastructures, soil dynamics, site effects and microzonation, vulnerability and risk assessment of civil engineering structures, infrastructures and monuments and lifeline earthquake engineering. He is  an author of more than 550 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and proceedings, and an author of several book chapters, an editor of three books published bySpringer, as well as a reviewer for numerous high impact scientific journals in his field of interest. Professor Kyriazis Pitilakis has been an invited keynote lecturer in many international and national congresses and conferences, while he is active member of national, European and international committees for seismic standards. The French Republic has honoured Professor Kyriazis Pitilakis for his scientific and academic merits as Chevalier of the Order of Academic Palms (Ordre des Palmes Academiques).Professor Kyriazis Pitilakis is the chairman of the 16th European Conference of Earthquake Engineering, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in June 2018.