Prof. Pericles A. Mitkas has been the President of the Hellenic Authority for Higher Education since February 2020. He received a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and an MSc and PhD in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University, USA.

Dr. Mitkas was a faculty member at Colorado State University for ten years. In 1999, he joined the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he served as the University Rector (2014-2019). Among other positions, he also served as President of the Balkan University Association (2018-19) and as President of the Black Sea University Network (2018-21).

His research interests include databases, data mining and machine learning, intelligent systems, and bioinformatics. Prof. Mitkas has been the coordinator of numerous research projects in Greece and the US, several of which involved industrial partners. He served in the Board of Directors of the Thessaloniki Innovation Zone (2013-19).