Michael Amiridis became the 30th president of the University of South Carolina on July 1, 2022. He had previously served as chancellor of the University of Illinois-Chicago since 2015.
Prior to taking the helm at UIC, Amiridis spent more than two decades at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He held positions as a chemical engineering professor, department chair, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing and, from 2009 to 2015, the university’s executive vice president for academic affairs and provost.
Amiridis earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991. As a researcher, he earned the National Science Foundation’s award for early-career scientists and engineers in 1999. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012 and a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2015.
Amiridis is a native of Greece and a U.S. citizen. He and his wife, Ero, have two children, both graduates of the University of South Carolina.