Dimitris Pitilakis is Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (M.Sc. in Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D. in Earthquake Engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris, France). His research goes beyond soil-structure interaction and geotechnical seismic engineering and aims at vulnerability assessment and resilience-based design of soil-foundation-structure systems at local or urban scales. It also focuses on geotechnical seismic isolation using soil mixtures with recycled materials, such as recycled tires. In addition, he also works on earthquake early warning systems and early damage assessment of critical infrastructure such as schools or industrial structures.

He is a member of the ISSMGE TG207 committee on soil-structure interaction and retaining walls. He is author of more than 180 papers in peer-reviewed journals and proceedings of international conferences. He is a member of national and international scientific societies for seismic engineering and a reviewer of international scientific journals. He has developed software for simulation of soil-foundation-structure interaction, with emphasis on nonlinear soil and structure behaviour, and software for foundation design and analysis.

He has extensive experience in experimental soil-foundation-structure interaction in small-scale (seismic bank and centrifuge) and full-scale (EuroProteas at Euroseistest http://euroseisdb.civil.auth.gr/sfsis) installations. He is currently responsible for the seismic bank and the full-scale EuroProteas installation at the Laboratory of Soil Mechanics, Foundations and Geotechnical Seismic Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.