Professor Costas Synolakis is a Member of the Academy of Athens, the 40-person hellenic national Academy and a professor at the University of Southern California. He is the Head of Greece’s National Committee on Climate Change. He is a leading coastal engineer whose research over the past three decades spans natural disasters, crisis management, tsunamis, beach maintenance and development, erosion, and geology. He is a vocal advocate of the plight of natural beaches under climate change conditions.
He has gotten the major international scientific awards in his field, including ASCE’s Moffat and Nichol Coastal Engineering, the International Coastal Engineering Award and EGU’s Soloviev Medal. He has published numerous highly cited, key scientific papers on disasters. He produced all inundation maps for the California coastline for evacuation planning. He has appeared in tens of documentaries, has authored tens of editorials for the Wall Street Journal and has given hundreds of interviews in international media such as the NYT, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, BBC, ABC, NBC, and Kathimerini.