Thanos Panagopoulos (née Aris Athanasios Panagopoulos) is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and founder and director of the Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems (AIIS) Laboratory at California State University, Fresno. His research focuses on the development of human-centered intelligent systems and pioneering AI technologies for social good, with application domains ranging from education and digital history preservation to computational sustainability, smart cities and buildings, transportation, smart farming, and scientific discovery. He is also dedicated to educating future generations of professionals and contributing to public dialogue and policy-making.
His theoretical interests include machine learning, deep learning, generative AI, optimization, reinforcement learning, control theory, and multi-agent systems, as well as the broader socioeconomic implications of AI-driven systems. He has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on multiple interdisciplinary, collaborative multi-million-dollar initiatives supported by organizations such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the California Energy Commission (CEC), the California Learning Lab, CAHSI–Google, and the Agriculture Research Institute (ARI). He has collaborated with industrial partners including Siemens, Microsoft Research, and BMW North America, as well as with world-leading scientific collaborations such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). He is also a four-time Farms Food Future (F3) Initiative Fellow.
His work has been published in flagship AI venues, including AAAI, AAMAS, and Expert Systems with Applications. His teaching excellence and well-established career have been recognized with Fresno State’s Provost’s Teaching Award—the highest faculty honor at the university. He has served as an elected member of the University Academic Senate (2021–2026) and on program committees for leading conferences, including AAAI, ECAI, IJCAI, and EUMAS. He is a member of the Authors Guild and CAHSI, and a former member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
He is the author of a forthcoming scholarly monograph on the socioeconomic and environmental implications of AI systems (Taylor & Francis).
Before joining Fresno State, Panagopoulos spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southampton, UK, in 2016, and holds a Diploma in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Crete, Greece.
