[1] Pavlidis studied at the National Technical University of Athens, where in 1957 he received his Diploma in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering degree.

[6] In 1980, he joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, as a Member of Technical Staff.

[7] While at Bell Labs, in 1982, he was appointed Senior Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI)[8] and held that position through 1986.

[4][9] His work in computer vision resulted in an algorithm that could scan barcodes that are poorly printed or defaced/dirty.

[10][11] Pavlidis has published several books, and numerous articles and papers in leading engineering journals and conference proceedings.