Vassilios A. Dougalis was born in Athens, Greece, in 1949. He received his B.S.E in Civil Engineering from Princeton in 1971, and his S.M and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard in 1973 and 1976, respectively.

He joined the Mathematics Department of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as an Assistant Professor in 1976 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1982. In 1983 he returned to Greece.

He was the Director of the Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics, FO.R.T.H. (2004-2016), and Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Directors of FO.R.T.H. (2009-2016). He was a Distinguished member of FORTH since 2017.

Vassilios held Professor positions at the University of Crete (1983-91), the National Technical University of Athens (1991-95), and the University of Athens (1995-2016). He was Professor Emeritus since 2016.

Dougalis made a series of fundamental contributions in the field of numerical methods for evolution p.d.e's, and in particular for linear and nonlinear wave equations. In the last forty years, he was the leading Numerical Analyst, and one of the most influential mathematicians in Greece.

He was an outstanding teacher and an acknowledged mentor of many young numerical analysts. In 2000, he received the "Vassilis Xanthopoulos - Stephanos Pnevmatikos" Award for Excellence in Academic Teaching.

He will be sorely missed by his many students, the mathematics community in Greece and by his many friends and collaborators in Greece and abroad. Vassilios was a truly noble man. He will be remembered for his ‘ethos’, kindness, modesty and thoughtfulness.