The contribution of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) to my scientific advancement and academic career has been decisive. I consider it my duty to acknowledge that NTUA provided me with all the necessary means for the realisation of my noble goals.

With deep emotion I recall my late professors and former Rectors of NTUA, who contributed enormously to my scientific training and advancement: Eftychios Kokkinopoulos, for his letter urging me to pursue an academic career; Evangelos Panagiotounacos, who supervised my doctoral dissertation and subsequently served as the principal proposer for my election as professor and later as his successor to the Chair of Statics and Steel Structures; Georgios Parissakis; and Periklis Theocaris, whose close collaborator I was during the last twenty years of his life. I am particularly indebted to the last-named for his contribution to my election as a full member of the Academy of Athens.

I also owe thanks to the subsequent Rectors who supported my research, teaching and scholarly work, among them the late Themistoklis Xanthopoulos, Andreas Andreopoulos and Konstantinos Moutzouris, while I would also underline that the current Rector, Ioannis Chatzigeorgiou, is continuing the distinguished tradition of our Institution (of academic order, meritocracy and excellence), so that NTUA may always remain at the forefront of developments in the fields of Technology, Innovation and Artificial Intelligence, which place it among the leading technological institutions in the world.