Pantelis Vassilakis earned a Post Doctoral Certificate in Auditory Science (2003) from the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA), Doctor of Philosophy (2001) and Master of Arts (1997) degrees in Ethnomusicology, specializing in Systematic Musicology (music cognition, acoustics, and aesthetics) also from UCLA, and a Bachelor of Arts (1993) degree in Music Composition and Technology from Kingston University, Surrey, England. He has also completed course studies in physics and digital systems of communication at the National Polytechnic of Athens, Greece. 

Dr. Vassilakis has composed for the English National Ballet and the London Chinese Orchestra and, since 1997, has been presenting at US national and international conferences, publishing several abstracts, articles, and book chapters and serving as reviewer for publications that include the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, the Journal of Comparative Physiology, the Computer Music Journal, and Oxford University Press. Recognitions include awards from the London Arts Board (1993), the National Training Council, UK (1994), and the Acoustical Society of America (1999 & 2001).
Pantelis is currently the chairperson at Columbia College’s Audio Arts and Acoustics department, Chicago, IL. His research interests include cross-cultural dissonance perception, psychoacoustics, signal analysis, otoacoustic emissions, sound localization, musical aesthetics, film music theory, and assessment driven collaborative learning.

Pantelis lives in downtown Chicago with his wife, Maria E. Vassilakis, a biologist (Goucher College) with a Masters degree in Nursing (DePaul University), currently working at Astellas Pharma Global Development.