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Dr. Amiridis received his PhD in Chemical Engineering
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991, and joined the
University of South Carolina as an Assistant Professor in 1994 after
working for three years for W.R. Grace & Company. He was promoted
through the academic ranks, became Department Chair in 2002, Dean of
the College of Engineering and Computing in 2006 and Provost in
August 2009. Under Amiridis's leadership the College of Engineering
and Computing at USC grew substantially in terms of students,
faculty, competitive research grants and doctoral degrees granted.
The College also created aggressive outreach and retention programs,
as well as bridging programs with several other institutions in the
USC and the South Carolina Technical College systems. Prior to his
deanship, Dr. Amiridis contributed significantly – both as a faculty
member and a Department Chair – to the growth of the Department of
Chemical Engineering, which has been ranked by NSF in the top 20
chemical engineering departments in the nation in terms of research
expenditures for the last decade. |
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Raised in a small,
rural town in the mountains of Virginia, John attended public
schools there and later won a four-year scholarship to King College
in Bristol TN, where he completed two majors -- Math and Psychology
-- in 1973. His first job was with the management training program
of K-Mart, which transferred him to South Florida, where he lived
for 13 years, doing a variety of jobs including construction
laborer, taxi driver, and bank teller in a large commercial bank in
Tampa. During that time John took management and computer classes
and completed an M.A. in counseling from the University of South
Florida in Tampa, with an emphasis on group counseling with adults.
He worked for a year and a half on the treatment staff of a
residential, experimental mental health program. In 1978 he began
work as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service in Bradenton,
FL and moved quickly through various accounting and customer service
supervisory positions until he was promoted and transferred to
Columbia in 1986. Until retiring in 2008, the bulk of his Postal
career was in Information Systems (telecommunications and
networking) for most of the post offices in South Carolina.
Upon retirement in April 2008, John drove a Honda scooter from Irmo
to Los Angeles, where he joined a team that flew to Beijing China to
teach English (ESL) for two months during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Returning to L.A., he then drove the scooter back across the USA,
e-mailing his new Chinese friends along the way. Last summer he went
with the same organization to Vinh, Vietnam, not far from Hanoi --
again to teach English .
This summer (2010) he plans to return to Beijing to teach during
August, and then fly to the Middle East in
October, again teaching ESL. He directed a regional conference for
people working with international students held at C.I.U. last June,
and is doing the same this June. John has enjoyed working with
international students at HIS and IFM since his retirement, utilized
by both organizations in a variety of ways. |
