Abstract :
Manos Chatzopoulos obtained his BSc in Physics from the Univ. of Crete in 2007 and his PhD from the Univ. of Texas at Austin in 2013. He was an Enrico Fermi Fellow at the University of Chicago before joining Louisiana State University (LSU) as an Assistant Professor of theoretical and computational astrophysics in 2016. He obtained tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022. He has received the prestigious US DOE Early Career Research Award, and the 2022 LSU Rainmaker Award in the Emerging Scholar for Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics category.
In parallel with his successful career in astrophysics Prof. Chatzopoulos also used his computational skills to start in 2021 the company “ParkZen” which aspires to offer "The Democratization of Parking” (https://www.parkzenapp.com/). ParkZen uses 100% hardware-free smart crowdsourcing technology to optimize parking operations and significantly reduce costs for large organizations by enabling better use of capital deployment. In 2022 the company won a $100,000 investment prize at the High-Stakes Pitch Competition during the Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week.
Prof. Chatzopoulos will talk to us about his experience in creating a company in the US the challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead. The talk is addressed not only to astronomer but to everyone with a science background.
