Dr. Zach Agioutantis is the Mining Engineering Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of Kentucky. Prior to that, he was a Professor at the Technical University of Crete, Greece, for over 25 years.  He has co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed journal papers and more than 300 conference papers on subjects related to subsidence, applied and theoretical rock mechanics, soil mechanics, slope stability, computer applications in mining and geotechnical engineering, mining systems and mining systems simulation, and sustainability in mining operations.

He is very active in research related to rock mechanics and computer applications for the mining and geotechnical industry.  He has developed stand-alone commercial software for use in ground control and subsidence engineering, as well as software used by MSHA for the stability analysis of underground workings.  He has also developed software related to the automation of mining systems and methane emissions modeling.