Michalis (Mike) Averkiou is associate professor at the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering of the University of Cyprus since 2005 and the recipient of the Marie Curie Chair of Excellence of the European Commission (2006-2009). He received a BS, an MS and a PhD in 1987, 1989 and 1994, respectively, all in Mechanical Engineering with specialization in Nonlinear Acoustics/Biomedical Ultrasound, from the University of Texas at Austin. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Applied Physics Laboratory of the Univ. of Washington from 1994 to 1996 and worked on lithotripsy, bubble dynamics, and therapeutic ultrasound. He joined Philips Medical Systems (1996-2005), and worked on diagnostic ultrasound imaging and specifically tissue harmonic imaging, and ultrasound contrast agents. He is also an Adjunct Research Professor at the University of Washington (1996-present). He has authored and co-authored over 40 journal articles and conference proceedings, and 5 book chapters. He holds 34 U.S. and international patents on diagnostic and therapeutic applications of ultrasound.

His research interests are in the areas of diagnostic ultrasound, angiogenesis quantification, image guided intervention, and therapeutic applications of ultrasound (thermal ablation, ultrasound-enhanced drug delivery). He is particularly interested in microbubble ultrasound contrast agents and their applications in oncology, including imaging and quantification of tumor angiogenesis.