Biography
Michael Amiridis became the 30th president of the University of South Carolina on July 1, 2022. Prior to coming to USC, he had served as chancellor of the University of Illinois-Chicago since
2015.
Amiridis earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991. As a researcher, he earned the National Science Foundation's award for early-career
scientists and engineers in 1999. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012 and a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in
2015.
During his tenure at UIC, the school completed a successful capital campaign that raised more $750 million and saw six years of record campus enrollment, while winning national accolades for attracting an increasingly diverse student population. He served on the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors for seven years.
Prior to his leadership at UIC, Amiridis spent more than two decades at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He held positions as a chemical engineering professor, department chair,
dean of the College of Engineering and Computing and, from 2009 to 2015, the university’s executive vice president for academic affairs and provost. He received numerous awards as a professor, including the University of South Carolina’s Michael J. Mungo Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching Awards and the Samuel Litman Distinguished Professor Award.
Amiridis was born in Greece and was recognized by Carnegie Corporation of New York as a Great Immigrant in 2022. He and his wife, Ero, have two children, both graduates of the University of South Carolina.