Originally from Athens, Greece, Agouris received her engineering degree from the National Technical University of Athens, and her master’s and doctoral degrees from The Ohio State University. As an undergraduate, she also received a degree in classical music and piano from the Greek Conservatory. Before joining William & Mary she served at George Mason as dean of the College of Science, chair of the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science and as a professor of remote sensing and spatial informatics. Before joining the faculty of George Mason, Agouris worked for the University of Maine as an assistant professor and then associate professor in the now named School of Computing and Information Science, and as a postdoctoral research associate for the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. She has also worked with the private sector, serving as principal investigator on technology transfer projects. As a scholar, Agouris has published more than 100 papers in numerous academic outlets, with more than 2,600 citations to date.

At George Mason, Agouris oversaw one of the university’s most active research units. In 2018 alone, the College of Science accounted for almost a third of George Mason’s total research expenditures and nearly half of its indirect revenue. The college includes 13 departments and programs, 20 research centers and nearly 80 degree programs. In 2017, the College of Science led George Mason’s largest research proposal to date, which was funded by the federal government with an initial budget of $40 million. During her tenure as dean, Agouris was also credited with creating new cross-cutting academic programs, increasing the diversity of the faculty body by almost 40 percent and assembling a diverse leadership team for her college comprising more than 60 percent women and under-represented populations.