Christos Zahopoulos

Associate Professor

About

Christos Zahopoulos is a tenured Associate Professor in the Healthcare and Biotechnology (CPS), Department of Physics and The Gordon Institute of Engineering Leadership at Northeastern University. He holds a Ph.D. Degree in Physics from Northeastern University and was a Post-doctoral Fellow at The Division of Applied Science at Harvard University. In 1988, he came back to Northeastern, where, in addition to doing research and teaching, he founded the Center for STEM Education and served as its Executive Director for almost 10 years.

Prof. Zahopoulos has been awarded more than 65 grants (more than 50 of them as sole PI) by NSF and other Foundations, the state of MA, school districts, corporations, and individual donors, which total close to $30 million. He has been actively involved in STEM Education at the national and state levels for more than 25 years. He has initiated and implemented numerous STEM Education Programs and Partnerships at the local and national levels that focus on bringing about STEM education reform, especially in improving STEM Teaching and Learning in K-16 and beyond. Two of the programs he co-founded (RE-SEED and The Boston Science Partnership – BSP) were mentioned in Science (Jul 16, 2010, and Aug 20, 2010, respectively) as exemplary. The former had a presence in 14 US States.

Dr. Zahopoulos has given 52 presentations (37 of them as invited or keynote speaker) and has co-authored 25 scientific and STEM Education papers and two books. The latest one, “Scientific Foundations of Engineering” (Cambridge University Press, August 2015), which he co-authored with Prof. Steve McKnight, is a graduate textbook and is being used in the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program course that bears the same name as its title and aspires to teach fundamental scientific principles that underlie all engineering disciplines.

For his work, he has received numerous honors and awards, including the “2005 President's Aspiration Award” from Northeastern University, the “IEEE 2010 Professional Achievement Award for Individuals,” was elected Fellow of the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences (2011) and has served in numerous state and national STEM Education Boards, including the MA Governor’s STEM Advisory Council (2010 - 15), the MA “K-12 STEM Education Frameworks/Standards, Curriculum and Assessment” Subcommittee (co-chair), the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) Advisory Board (2012 - 18), the AP Higher Education Advisory Committee (APHEC) (2013-15) and the Next Generation of Science Standards State Advisory Group (2012-15).

Education

PhD from Northeastern University (1985)