Michael Amaridis - President of University of South Carolina

July 17 (DI Club)  -- Michael Amaridis, President, University of South Carolina.  We invited President Amaridis to speak to us via Zoom.  After all, USC is in Columbia.  We are in Charleston.  But he WANTED to speak to us in person.  The Post and Courier had an article in August of last year about how USC is coming together to develop a new sustainable energy tech hub.  Our country has a need to improve how we power our homes and industries in the decades to come and USC plants to create a Regional Technology and Innovation Hub.  Such a center will provide energy resilience  and protection from severe weather events and malicious attacks.  The goal is to bring together various organizations in the state including USC, Clemson, the U.S. and S.C. Departments of Commerce, the Savannah River National Laboratory, as well as highly skilled engineers, scientists and digital developers from around S.C.  The Charleston Regional Digital Corridor has been instrumental in developing the tech community in the Charleston area.  President Amaridis plants to expand this concept of academic institutions, government, the business community and tech experts working together for a common goal.  And now, with recent events on college campuses around the country, perhaps President Amaridis will share his views on how our colleges and universities should respond to this latest challenge. Required reading:  https://sc.edu/about/our_leadership/president/index.php https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Amiridis https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/amiridis-why-sc-is-coming-together-to-develop-a-new-sustainable-energy-tech-hub/article_d22f4582-34b2-11ee-8aaf-f7204d0f7a2e.htmlMichael Amiridis became 30th president of the University of South Carolina on July 1, 2022. Before coming home to Carolina, he led the University of Illinois Chicago as its chancellor since 2015.

About Michael Amaridis: Prior to leading UIC, Amiridis spent more than two decades at our Columbia campus as a faculty member and administrator, serving from 2009 to 2015 as the university's executive vice president for academic affairs and provost. As a researcher, Amiridis earned the National Science Foundation's award for early-career scientists and engineers in 1999, was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012, and was elected a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2015. He and his wife, Ero, are the parents of two children who are both graduates of the University of South Carolina.