Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos's research interests include robotics, sensors for transportation applications, computer vision, and control systems. As the director of the Minnesota Robotics Institute and a faculty member of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, his transportation research has included projects involving vision-based sensing and classification of vehicles, and the recognition of human activity patterns in public areas and while driving.
Papanikolopoulos received a diploma in electrical and computer engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, an MSEE in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1992. He is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including the IEEE Fellow award, the McKnight Presidential Endowed Professorship, the UMN Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education, the IEEE RAS George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation, and the University of Minnesota's Faculty Creativity Award. He has authored or coauthored more than 300 journal and conference papers; one of these (co-authored with Osama Masoud) was awarded the IEEE VTS 2001 Best Land Transportation Paper Award.