Beata Maria Kitsikis Panagopoulos (Greek: Μπεάτα Μαρία Κιτσίκη-Παναγοπούλου; June 27, 1925 – April 27, 2023) was a Greek-born American professor of art at San Jose State University.

[6] At the time of her birth, he was a technical director for the British company MacAlpine and had, among other projects, built the harbour of Heraklion, Crete.

[1] In February 1947, Panagopoulos left Greece for the United States, where she had received a scholarship to the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

[1] During this time she was appointed Kress Professor of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece and concurrently served three years as director of the Gennadius Library.

Panagopoulos wrote of the experience in an article in the UCLA Educator 1976, entitled: "On Creativity in the People's Republic of China, An Art Historian's Perspective.

[17] Panagopoulos' book Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece was published in 1979 and examined the development of Latin ecclesiastical architecture in Greece: This is the only comprehensive study of the most outstanding extant Gothic monasteries built during the French and Italian occupancy of Greece after the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 CE.-- Walter Horn, University of California, Berkeley[18] In 1982, Panagopoulos was appointed Kress Professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (ASCSA) and from July 1983 to July 1986, was director of its Gennadius Library.

[20][21] During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Panagopoulos did her own research and synthesized fragmented studies surrounding certain large mansions (Greek: αρχοντικά) built in Greece and the remaining Balkans between 1700 and 1900.

Her work recognized as an emerging class the owners of these mansions who were merchants dealing in products—leather, wax, fabrics—from the Ottoman Empire for sale in lucrative European markets like Madrid, Vienna and Venice.