He graduated from Athens College in 1987 and went on to complete a degree in Electrical Engineering at Imperial College London and postgraduate degrees at Stanford University in the United States. An academic career followed. Since 1998, he has held various positions at Columbia Business School, where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence and the Dean’s Award for Teaching Innovation. 

Prior to joining Columbia University, Costis Maglaras was a research scientist at Canon Research Center America in Palo Alto, working on image processing and machine vision.

His research focuses on stochastic modeling and data science, with emphasis on stochastic networks, financial engineering, and quantitative pricing and revenue management. He has advised more than 20 PhD students, many holding leading positions in academia and industry. His research received many research awards, and he served as departmental editor on many flagship journals of his field. He is fellow of INFOMRS and a Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association.

In 2007, Dr. Maglaras founded Mismi Inc., a New York based a provider of algorithmic trading technologies in the US equities market. He is the David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and on July 1, 2019 assumed the position of Dean.

During his time as Dean, in addition to managing the transition into and during the pandemic where the School excelled in the extent of in person teaching and its support of its community, Columbia Business School has made a significant push in the area of digital transformation and the digital future of business; launched a new program that focuses on climate change, that in addition to curriculum in climate finance, impact investing and ESG in asset management, explores breakthrough clean technologies and business strategy around the transition to net zero; expanded the School’s focus in entrepreneurship and innovation; created a new dual degree program with Engineering; and significantly enhanced the diversity of the student body with a schoolwide focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Additionally, under his leadership the School will complete the construction of a transformative 500,000 sq.ft. campus where the Business School will move at the end of 2021.

He is member of the Board of Trustees of Athens College.

Dean of Columbia Business School and Athens College alumnus, Costis Maglaras ΄87, in an exclusive interview, talks about the difficult path to the top of one of the leading universities in the U.S., his fondness for the College, and his relationship with former classmates.  He gives advice to students who want to enter the world of business, encouraging them to have a vision and the determination to succeed.

On Friday, January 17, 2020, Dean of Columbia Business School Costis Maglaras ΄87, spoke to our students about his successful academic career abroad and gave advice on what to look out for in their first career steps. His entire lecture is available on the following video.