Kyriacos Athanasiou

Kyriacos Athanasiou served as Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering at the University of California, Davis, where he also held the Child Family Endowed Chair in Engineering and a joint appointment as Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery. He earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering summa cum laude from the New York Institute of Technology in 1984, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University in 1985, Ph.M. in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Bioengineering from Columbia University in 1988, and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Bioengineering from Columbia University in 1989. His academic career includes positions at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, Rice University as the Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Bioengineering, and subsequently at UC Davis from 2010 to 2017.

Athanasiou's research centers on tissue engineering solutions for cartilage injuries and diseases, emphasizing scaffold-free self-assembling processes to produce biomechanically functional neocartilage for articular cartilage, menisci, and temporomandibular joint fibrocartilage that is biocompatible, stable, and matures after implantation. He has authored influential books such as Articular Cartilage (CRC Press, 2013; 2nd ed., 2017), Engineering the Knee Meniscus (Morgan & Claypool, 2009), and Tissue Engineering of Temporomandibular Joint Cartilage (Morgan & Claypool, 2009). His contributions include over 350 peer-reviewed publications cited more than 49,000 times. Athanasiou received the 2014 Outstanding Senior Faculty Award from the UC Davis College of Engineering, the 2012 Nemitsas Prize (Cyprus' highest national prize for scientists), the 2013/14 H.R. Lissner Medal from the ASME Bioengineering Division, the Biomedical Engineering Society Distinguished Service Award, the Thomas A. Edison Patent Award, two Hershel M. Rich Invention Awards, and the Van C. Mow Medal. He is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Biomedical Engineering Society, and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering. Discoveries from his group have led to four U.S. companies producing medical products for cartilage treatment.

Professional Email: athanasiou@ucdavis.edu