Lianis, George

George Lianis was born in 1926 in Naoussa, Greece. His father was an employee of the Greek railroads. The family lived in various towns in northern Greece, where his father served as stationmaster.

During the World War II he was an organizer for Heniaia Panelladikē Organōsē Neon (EPON) [Unified Panhellenic Organization of Youth], the youth group of resistance to the German occupation of Greece. In 1953, he received a degree in mechanical and electrical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. He completed his graduate studies at Imperial College of the University of London where in 1956 he received a PhD in mechanical engineering. In 1959, he moved to the United States to join the faculty of Brown University where he was promoted to full professor in 1961. His academic work includes the physics of continuous media and the theory of relativity. He became visiting scientist at North American Aviation, General Dynamics Astronautics, Boeing, Hexcel, and Lockheed Propulsion, and was visiting professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, Lehigh University, and Technische Hochschule Aachen.

In 1964, still living in the United States, he became acquainted with Andreas Papandreou, future prime minister of Greece, and was invited to help establish a new university in Patrai, Greece. After the military dictatorship arrived in 1967, he was active in anti-dictatorship struggles with the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (P.A.K.). He served as general secretary of the North American Council of P.A.K. until 1974. After the fall of the dictatorship in 1974, he returned to Greece as a founding member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). He became professor at the chair of mechanics at the Aristotle University of Thessalonikē. In 1981, when PASOK became the first socialist government in Greece, he entered the cabinet as Vice Minister of Education and in 1983, the first Minister of Research and Technology. Between 1985 and 1997 he served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to countries in Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Mongolia, Singapore, and Malaysia. He stayed involved with issues of innovation policy and higher education until his death in 2008.