June 3, 2025    Mallory Lindahl

Ioannis Gkioulekas, associate professor at the Robotics Institute in the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science, has received the 2025 Bodossaki Distinguished Young Scientist award in the field of Applied Sciences and Technologies: Artificial Intelligence.

The Bodossaki Foundation recognizes contributions made to Greek society that align with their four strategic action pillars: promoting education, improving healthcare, protecting the environment and empowering Civil Society. The Distinguished Young Scientist award acknowledges scholars of Greek descent under 40 years of age who have made significant progress in political sciences, biomedical sciences, basic sciences and applied sciences and technologies. Candidates for the award have robust bodies of work in their field, contribute to the intellectual and scientific development of Greece and act as academic role models in their communities. 

Gkioulekas joined CMU in 2017, where he co-directs the Computational Imaging Lab, and is a member of the computer vision and computer graphics groups. His research focuses on the integration of optics, electronics, and computation, to create imaging systems with unprecedented capabilities. Some imaging advances from his lab include: systems that can look around corners for applications in navigation and surveillance; systems that can image inside tissue for medical applications; and systems that can image inside smoke for applications in wildfire management and management of other natural disasters. 

He has earned several awards for his work, such as the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and best paper awards in the top computer vision and computer graphics conferences, including the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) in 2019 and 2024 and SIGGRAPH in 2024. 

Alongside his research, Gkioulekas prioritizes educational outreach. He organizes introductory photography and imaging courses for primary and middle-school students. He has also led efforts within the computational imaging community to increase research opportunities for undergraduate students; these efforts include creating the student travel grant program and the summer school on computational imaging at the International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP), the leading conference specializing in computational imaging. 

The award ceremony for the Bodossaki Distinguished Young Scientist Awards will take place in June at Zappeion Hall in Athens, Greece, where Gkioulekas will travel to accept the honor. He, along with the other winners, will receive special recognition from Greek government officials for their scientific contributions.

For More Information: Aaron Aupperlee | 412-268-9068 | aaupperlee@cmu.edu