Approximately 390 students are eligible to participate in Coastal Carolina University’s summer graduation ceremony on Friday, Aug. 6, at 1 p.m., at the HTC Student Recreation and Convocation Center. Joseph Fitsanakis, Ph.D., a professor of intelligence and security studies in the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts at CCU, will deliver the address. He is recipient of the 2021 Professor of the Year Award as chosen by the Student Government Association.

In support of the updated COVID-19 guidance from the CDC, the University strongly recommends that everyone, including those who are fully vaccinated, wear their masks on campus when indoors and in public settings.

Since coming to CCU in 2015, Fitsanakis has received the University’s Professor of the Year Award (2018 and 2021), the Edwards College John B. Durrell Award (2017), and the Department of Politics Professor of the Year Apple Award (2016, 2017, and 2020). Fitsanakis has written extensively on intelligence collection, information security, cyber espionage, and sub-state political violence. He is the co-editor of Intelligence Beyond the Anglosphere: Mediterranean and Balkan Regions (2017), and author of Redesigning Wiretapping: The Digitization of Communications Interception (2020), among other books. Fitsanakis has published research on intelligence agencies in the United States, Africa, Southern Europe, and Southeast Asia, including North Korea. His writings have been translated into several languages and referenced by media outlets such as The Washington Post, ABC, BBC, NPR, and Newsweek.

In addition to teaching, Fitsanakis serves the University as faculty mentor for the Chanticleer Intelligence Brief and Women in Intelligence and National Security, two extracurricular initiatives offered through the Department of Intelligence and Security Studies.

Fitsanakis, a native of the Greek islands, earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Birmingham in England, and both a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, United Kingdom.

The ceremony can be viewed via a live web stream on CCU’s summer commencement webpage.