Dr. Vassilis L. Syrmos is the Interim Provost for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH Mānoa). He is responsible for the overall academic vision and direction of UH’s flagship research campus, including strategic and academic planning, budgeting, faculty affairs, and student success.
Prior to assuming the leadership of UH Mānoa, Dr. Syrmos served as Vice President for Research and Innovation at the University of Hawaiʻi System from September 2013 to June 2025, where he provided critical leadership and coordination of systemwide research and innovation efforts, including management and direction of UH’s research support, technology transfer and many compliance functions.
Dr. Syrmos previously served as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. In that capacity, he has worked on a range of projects including developing major research facilities such as the Daniel K. Inouye Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE Hale), the state’s only laboratory to be rated LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) Platinum.
Since 1991, he has been with the department of electrical engineering at UH Mānoa, where he is a professor. He has also served as the Associate Dean of the UH Mānoa College of Engineering, and spent a sabbatical leave at The Boeing Company as a research fellow.
His interests include geometric and algebraic approaches in linear system theory, computational algorithms methods for signal and image processing, robust/optimal filter design in systems, medical imaging, and prognostics and diagnostics methods related to condition based maintenance systems.
Dr. Syrmos is the author/coauthor of more than 100 journals and conference papers and the book Optimal Control, 2nd edition, John Wiley, 1995. He is also the associate editor of Circuits, Systems and Signal Processing.
He has served in numerous international conferences on technical program committees, editorial boards, and organizing committees. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Office of Naval Research, the Naval Air Systems Command, the Naval Sea Systems Command, the Air Force Research Labs at Wright Patterson, the Army Research Labs, The Boeing Company, Hawaiian Electric Company and Hamamatsu Photonics.
He previously served as a consultant for the Canada France Hawaiʻi Telescope (CFHT), Innovative Solutions (Nova-Sol), Science Technology International (STI) and others. He is a Boeing AD Welliver Fellow, a member of the Sigma Xi research organization, and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
He currently serves as a board member of the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaiʻi (RCUH), Hawaiʻi Technology Development Corporation (HTDC), Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaiʻi Authority (NELHA), O‘ahu Economic Development Board (OEDB), and Military Affairs Council (MAC).
Dr. Syrmos obtained his PhD at Georgia Institute of Technology in electrical engineering and a diploma in electrical engineering from Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.