Student Spotlight: Filippos Tzortzoglou
February 23, 2026
Filippos Tzortzoglou is a doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering with a focus on transportation systems engineering from Irakleio, Crete, Greece. He earned a B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the Technical University of Crete and an M.Sc. from Cornell and now studies algorithm design for connected and automated vehicles under the guidance of Andreas Malikopoulos at Cornell University.
What is your area of research and why is it important?
I work on connected and automated vehicles, that is, driverless cars that can communicate with each other and with infrastructure. My work focuses on designing algorithms that allow these vehicles to move safely, efficiently, and with minimal environmental impact, under any traffic scenario. This research is important because traffic accidents, congestion, and emissions remain major unsolved problems worldwide. Road crashes cause over a million deaths each year, and traffic delays waste enormous time, fuel, and money. By coordinating vehicles through communication and intelligent control, we can prevent collisions, reduce stop-and-go driving, and optimize traffic flow.
What are the larger implications of this research?
Ultimately, my research aims to make transportation safer, cleaner, and more reliable for everyone. Beyond safety, which is clearly the top priority, traffic congestion imposes enormous societal costs. In 2022, congestion in major U.S. cities caused commuters to waste millions of hours, burn billions of gallons of fuel, and cost the trucking industry over $108 billion dollars. Long periods of driving can also lead to fatigue and reduced alertness, contributing to thousands of crashes annually. Connected and automated vehicles can reduce these risks while improving comfort. They can also improve fairness and accessibility, for example, by coordinating traffic to give priority to an ambulance rushing a patient to the hospital.
What inspired you to choose this field of study?
When I was a child, I often asked myself two questions. First, why can ants move smoothly in large groups to reach food without apparent communication, while humans struggle to coordinate traffic efficiently? Second, if we can remotely control toy vehicles, why can’t we control real vehicles to improve safety and sustainability? The strongest motivation, however, comes from my hometown, where many road fatalities occurred every year and remained a persistent issue despite ongoing efforts to address them. From my early undergraduate years, I joined student teams working on autonomous driving, as the field immediately captured my interest and inspired me to pursue research in safer transportation systems.
What did receiving the Best Student Paper Award in Smart Cities at the IEEE CDC 2025 mean to you?
Receiving an award is meaningful because it distinguishes your work among many others. Although pursuing a Ph.D. is exciting when you are passionate about your field, it is also highly demanding, especially when competing to produce novel research alongside leading experts worldwide. Choosing the right advisor and research direction is therefore critical, and I feel fortunate to have made the best possible choice in both. Receiving the Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE CDC 2025 in Smart Cities was simply a confirmation that I am on the right path. Our paper extended previous work on coordinating connected and automated vehicles at signal-free intersections, where vehicles communicate to cross safely without traffic lights. See Matlab simulation videos: CAVs and Signal-Free Intersection and Vissim Simulator.
What are your hobbies or interests outside of your research or scholarship?
In my free time, I enjoy playing the piano, the guitar, and some traditional instruments from my home country, Greece. When I have company, I like playing team sports such as soccer, basketball, tennis, and table tennis, and I also enjoy listening to music, especially songs by Vangelis Papathanasiou, the composer of Chariots of Fire. I am a big fan of the English Premier League and a supporter of Arsenal Football Club. During summers in Greece, I love fishing and swimming. I rarely cook, but cleaning the kitchen afterward is never a trivial task.
Why did you choose Cornell to pursue your degree?
I chose Cornell because of its leadership in autonomous driving and the opportunity to work with Professor Andreas Malikopoulos, whose research aligns closely with my interests. Cornell’s interdisciplinary environment and collaborative culture provide the ideal setting for me to pursue research that advances safer and more sustainable transportation systems. My connection to Cornell began during my undergraduate studies at a regional university in Greece, when a professor mentioned Cornell and the work of a professor at CS department, Kilian Weinberger on autonomous vehicle perception. As I learned more, I was inspired by the university’s excellence but also believed admission was beyond my reach, especially after being told how competitive it was. Now, studying here feels deeply meaningful.