Zach Agioutantis

Dr. Agioutantis has an Engineering Diploma in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering from the National Technical University in Athens, Greece and an MSc and PhD degree from Virginia Tech, USA. He is currently the Mining Engineering Foundation Professor at the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of Kentucky.

His main research experience lies in the areas of rock mechanics, numerical modeling, mining systems and, most recently, gas reservoir modeling. He also has a strong background in software development for mining and geotechnical applications, including commercially available and freely distributed software. As a result, through ongoing collaboration with Virginia Tech, he has developed the Surface Deformation Prediction System (SDPS)—the first Windows-based suite of computer programs to calculate surface deformations due to underground coal mines. The SDPS software has been constantly updated over the last 25 years and is now the official package used by the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) for subsidence calculations. It is also widely used by the mining industry and consultants in the U.S. and Australia.

In recent years, he has developed database applications for the management of large and real-time data sets, such as the applications deployed at the surface lignite mining complex in northern Greece. He has also worked on applications for collecting, managing and analyzing atmospheric data for underground coal mines in the U.S.

He has authored and co-authored more than 250 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.

To learn more about Dr. Agioutantis, visit:  https://www.engr.uky.edu/research/researchers/zach-agioutantis-ph-d/