With pleasure and nostalgia I recall the five years of my studies at the School of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), 1966–1971. My admission following examinations in a wide range of subjects filled me with joy and pride.

I was now a student at the most prestigious polytechnic in Greece. Many of my fellow students knew my name from the publication of my solutions to proposed exercises in the journal of the Hellenic Mathematical Society, and it was a great pleasure for them to meet me in person.

In the first two years the courses were of a general nature: mathematics, physics, descriptive geometry, and mechanics. From the third year onward, civil engineering courses began: applied statics, reinforced concrete, foundations, soil mechanics, steel structures, architecture, and others.

It was then that I began to enter into the spirit and the way of thinking of an engineer. I will never forget those afternoons when, under the supervision of the teaching assistants, we worked through exercises in statics, steel structures, and other subjects. NTUA was a true school. The interest and care of our teachers was exemplary.

At the end of my second year I received a grade of ten in the Mechanics course taught by the late Professor and Academician Pericles Theocaris. He then called me to his office and asked me to pursue research at the Laboratory of Strength of Materials, which he directed. After reflection and deliberation, I gave a positive answer. It was a decision that shaped my entire subsequent career.

I spent many hours in the laboratory, both during the academic year and during the summer holidays. As a third-year student I published my first paper in Technika Chronika. This was followed, before I had even completed my studies, by the joint publication with Theocaris of my first research paper in the international journal Journal of Applied Mechanics, one of the most authoritative journals in mechanics.

I fell in love with mechanics, to which I devoted the rest of my life. After completing my studies and fulfilling my military service, I was appointed Teaching Assistant at the Chair of Mechanics at NTUA.

After serving for four years, in 1977 I was elected Professor at the Democritus University of Thrace (DUTh) to the Chair of Mechanics, at the age of 29. I remained at DUTh until my retirement in 2015.

My election as a Full Member of the Academy of Athens to the Chair of Theoretical and Experimental Mechanics in 2016 marked an important milestone in my life.

In conclusion, my entire scientific career originates from that unexpected yet decisive meeting with the late Pericles Theocaris in his office, when I was a second-year student in the School of Civil Engineering. NTUA taught me diligence, discipline, attention to detail, and dedication to duty.

I always keep vivid in my memory my esteemed Professors and teachers, and above all Pericles Theocaris, to whom I bow with respect. At this point the words of Alexander the Great, each time he referred to his teacher Aristotle, are apt: “To my parents I owe my life, but to my teacher I owe the good life.”