He is also affiliated with Courant's Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science (CAOS). He received BA and MSci degrees from the University of Cambridge in 2001, and a PhD degree from the University of Chicago in 2009. Prior to joining Courant and CAOS as faculty he was a postdoctoral researcher there from 2009-2012. Giannakis' research work is at the interface between applied mathematics and climate atmosphere ocean science. His primary research interests are in geometrical data analysis and statistical modeling of complex systems. He has applied these tools in topics including idealized dynamical systems, ocean and sea ice variability on seasonal to interannual timescales, and organized atmospheric convection.