Nicholas Samios grew up in Livadi and graduated from the Kythera “Gymnasion” about 1949, then left for the United States to study Physics at New York’s Columbia University. He graduated from Columbia in 1953 and in 1957. He became one of the United States’ leading nuclear physicists. Much of his career was at the Brookhaven National Laboratories in New York where he made major contributions to our understanding of neutrinos and the developement of the “Standard Model” of particle physics. He was director of Brookhaven from 1982 to 1997. As the chief administrator of the research facility he oversaw the building of the “Relativistic Particle Collider”. After stepping down from the chief administrative position, he returned to research. Dr. Samios has received many awards and honors from national and international scientific societies. The link below gives a good summary of Dr. Samios’ distinguished scientific career:
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/new/Samios.htm