Michael A. Karakassides is a Professor of Ceramics, Composite, and  Porous   Materials at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, Greece. He received a Diploma in Physics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1984. He then received a postgraduate fellowship (1985-1990) at the Institute of Theoretical and Physical Chemistry of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (“EIE”), and his Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry of the University of Athens in 1990. Between 1992 and 1999 he worked as a researcher at the Institute of Materials Science of the NCSR “Democritus” initially as a contract researcher in the Glass and Ceramics Laboratory. Then, at the same Institute, he was an Associated Researcher with Grade-D, in the Laboratory of Nanoporous and Layered Materials. In 1999 he moved to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Ioannina, where he initially worked as an Assistant Professor. He was elected as Assistant Professor in 2001 and became Associate Professor in 2007 and Full Professor in 2012. In 2011 he was a Visiting Professor at the Regional Center of Advanced Technologies, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. He is the oldest and most senior faculty member in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Director (since 2016) of the Laboratory of Ceramics and Composites (CCL), and leader of the Hierarchically Porous and Hybrid Materials (HPHM) group.