Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos's research interests include robotics, sensors for transportation applications, computer vision, and control systems. As the director of the Minnesota Robotics Institute and a faculty member of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Vision Laboratory, his transportation research has included projects involving vision-based sensing and classification of vehicles, and the recognition of human activity patterns in public areas and while driving.
Papanikolopoulos received a diploma in electrical and computer engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, an MSEE in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1992. He is the recipient of numerous academic awards including the University of Minnesota's Faculty Creativity Award. He has authored or coauthored more than 160 journal and conference papers; one of these (co-authored with Osama Masoud) which was awarded the IEEE VTS 2001 Best Land Transportation Paper Award.