Petros Faloutsos

Petros Faloutsos is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at York University, where he has been since 2011. Previously, he founded and directed the computer graphics lab (M.A.Gix) at UCLA. He holds a PhD and MSc in Computer Science from the University of Toronto and a BEng in Electrical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens.

His research spans computer graphics, autonomous agents, and interactive systems, with specialized focus on:

• Physics-based animation for virtual humans
• Real-time crowd simulation and steering algorithms
• Facial animation and affective computing
• Serious games for surgical training and rehabilitation

Publications demonstrate strong emphasis on crowd behavior modeling, human-building interactions, and reinforcement learning applications, with recent work exploring pandemic-responsive navigation and gamified design frameworks.

Honors include:

• Post-doctoral Supervisor of the Year (2020)
• ACM SIGCOMM Test-of-Time Award (2010)
• Best Paper Award for 'The Virtual Stuntman' (2001)
• Okawa Foundation Research Grant (2002)

He has advised over 30 graduate students and co-directs the Graphics and Media at York (GaMaY) Lab. Major projects include the SteerSuite crowd simulation framework and Laparobot surgical training system.