Mihalis Yannakakis is Percy K. and Vida L. W. Hudson Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University.

He studied at the Varvakeio High school, at the National Technical University of Athens (Diploma in Electrical Engineering, 1975), and at Princeton University (PhD in Computer Science, 1979).

Mihalis Yannakakis worked at Bell Labs Research from 1978 until 2001, as Member of Technical Staff (1978-1991) and as Head of the Computing Principles Research Department (1991-2001). Then he was Director of Computing Principles Research at Avaya Labs (2001-2002), and Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University (2002-2003). He joined Columbia University in 2004.

His research interests include design and analysis of algorithms, complexity theory, combinatorial optimization, game theory, databases, and modelling, verification and testing of reactive systems.