Fokion N. Egolfopoulos received a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in February 1981 and a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from San Jose State University in December 1984; from March 1981 to May 1983 he served military service (compulsory) in the Greek Navy. Subsequently, he received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of California at Davis in June 1990, after having spent the last two years of his doctoral research at Princeton University. After his formal education he has been associated with the Combustion and Fuels Laboratory at Princeton University as a Research Associate from June 1990 to August 1991. In August 1991 he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California at the rank of Assistant Professor. In April 1997 he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and from January 1998 until November of 2001 he was appointed also as Visiting Associate and Lecturer of the Department of Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology. In June of 2002 he was promoted to the rank of Full Professor. In April 2013 he was appointed to the William E. Leonhard Professorship in Engineering.

Professor Egolfopoulos’ research interests include: physical and chemical processes in flames; high-speed air-breathing propulsion; turbulent combustion; plasma-assisted combustion; conventional and alternative fuels; mechanisms of combustion-generated oxides of nitrogen; heterogeneous reacting flows; microgravity combustion; detailed modeling of reacting flows; laser-based experimental techniques. His work is and has been supported by Air-Force Office of Scientific Research, Office of Naval Research, NASA, US Department of Energy, US Department of Transportation, National Science Foundation, United Technology Research Center, the California Energy Commission, PSA Peugeot-Citröen, the Southern California Gas Company, TRW, Solar Turbines, the Tai Chong Cheang Steamship Co. of Hong Kong, Caterpillar Inc., and the California Institute for Energy Efficiency. He has authored and co-authored one hundred and forty-seven (147) archival journal publications, eleven (11) editorial comments, two (2) book chapters, one hundred and sixty (160) conference proceedings and reports, and has given one hundred and sixty three (163) invited and contributed scholarly addresses.

He is a recipient of the Silver Medal of the Combustion Institute at the Twenty-Second International Combustion Symposium. During his first year at USC he was named a Zumberge Fellow by receiving a James H. Zumberge Research Innovation Fund (ZRIF) and received a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Initiation Grant. In April of 1994, he was awarded the Faculty of the Month University-Wide Award by the Mortar Board Senior Honor Society, in recognition of dedication to teaching and to students as well as academic accomplishments. In March of 1995, he was appointed to the Fred O’Green Assistant Professorship in Engineering. In April of 1996, he was awarded the Junior Faculty Research Award in Engineering, for his innovative research work in the area of combustion and the development of a combustion laboratory. In 1997 and 1998, he was awarded an Outstanding Teaching Awards in Mechanical Engineering. In 2007, he was awarded the Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award, Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a Fellow of the Combustion Institute. Since 2014, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Combustion Institute. He served as a co-Chair of the Laminar Flames Colloquium of the 29th and 30th International Symposium on Combustion. Since 2009, he is the Editor in Chief of Combustion and Flame, the leading combustion journal, after having served as an Associate Editor of the journal from January 2003 until December 2008.