#BreakTheBias in Science & Technology
Athena RC celebrates the International Women's Day
08-03-2022
Online
On March 8, International Women's Day, the Gender Equality Board of the Athena RC with the support of the Innovation Unit for Women / Athena RC coorganize an online panel at 12.00 - 13.30 (CET) on the topic of "#BreakTheBias in Science and Technology" aiming at investigating how science, research and innovation can contribute in practical and substantial ways to overcome stereotypes.
T. Alissafi, assistant professor in biology at Medical School of NKUA, V. Kotroni, Research Director at the National Observatory of Athens, G. Koutrika, Research Director at Athena Research Center / Information Management Systems Institute, P. Nomikou, associate professor, faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, NKUA, L. Panayotopoulos, cofounder and CEO of EVIA IP Ltd, VP of PAPAPOSTOLOU S.A. Medical Equipments and Solutions, A. Zampara, Project Adviser at the EIC Pathfinder programme talk with each other and answer questions on challenges, opportunities, and advancements in science and technology in relation to stereotypes but also how science and technology help alleviate (or not) stereotypes broadly in the society.
The event is moderated by Elina Makri, Journalist.
Meet the speakers
Themis Alissafi pursued her BSc and MSc at Chemistry from the University of Crete. Her PhD thesis in Dr. Panoutsakopoulou’s lab at BRFAA focused on immunology. She performed postdoctoral research on immunology receiving fellowships from ERS and EAACI in Prof. BN. Lambrecht’s lab at Gent University and following her repatriation in Prof. Boumpas and Dr. Verginis labs at IMBB and BRFAA, as an IKY fellow. She is currently assistant professor in biology at Medical School of NKUA and group leader at the Immune Regulation lab at BRFAA. Dr. Alissafi had the honor to receive many international (ERS, EAACI, EWRR) and national (IKY, HELANI, F.Kafatos) awards. Her research has been funded by European (ERC STG) and Greek (IKY, HFRI) organizations and has been published in top international journals (Νature Medicine, Cell Metabolism, Cancer Immunology Research, Journal of Clinical Investigation, etc).
Themis Alissafi pursued her BSc and MSc at Chemistry from the University of Crete. Her PhD thesis in Dr. Panoutsakopoulou’s lab at BRFAA focused on immunology. She performed postdoctoral research on immunology receiving fellowships from ERS and EAACI in Prof. BN. Lambrecht’s lab at Gent University and following her repatriation in Prof. Boumpas and Dr. Verginis labs at IMBB and BRFAA, as an IKY fellow. She is currently assistant professor in biology at Medical School of NKUA and group leader at the Immune Regulation lab at BRFAA. Dr. Alissafi had the honor to receive many international (ERS, EAACI, EWRR) and national (IKY, HELANI, F.Kafatos) awards. Her research has been funded by European (ERC STG) and Greek (IKY, HFRI) organizations and has been published in top international journals (Νature Medicine, Cell Metabolism, Cancer Immunology Research, Journal of Clinical Investigation, etc).
Vassiliki Kotroni, Research Director at the National Observatory of Athens has a PhD in Dynamic Meteorology (University Clermont-Ferrand, 1993). She has acted as Research Associate at the University Athens (1993-1998), while since 1999 she joined the National Observatory of Athens (NOA). She has 30 years of experience in dynamic meteorology, numerical weather prediction (including dust forecasting), weather monitoring, atmospheric electricity, climatology, dynamics and societal impacts of weather-related natural hazards. She has extensive experience in the development of weather and climate services adapted to sectors such as energy, agriculture, urban environment. She is co-founder of the weather forecast website: www.meteo.gr. She has published 158 papers in international peer-reviewed journals (h-factor 33, 3343 citations) and coordinated, participated either as project partner in a large number of national and European programs with total funding for NOA ~ 4,500,000 (2021). She has extensive experience in attracting private sector funding.
Georgia Koutrika is Research Director at Athena Research Center in Greece. She has more than 15 years of experience in multiple roles at HP Labs, IBM Almaden, and Stanford. She has received a PhD and a diploma in Computer Science from the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Athens in Greece. Her work focuses on natural language data interfaces, data exploration, recommendations, and data analytics, and has been incorporated in commercial products, described in 14 granted patents and 26 patent applications in the US and worldwide, and published in more than 100 papers in top-tier conferences and journals. Georgia is an ACM Senior Member, IEEE Senior Member, and ACM Distinguished Speaker. She is member of the VLDB Endowment Board of Trustees and member of the ACM-RAISE Working Group. She is co-EiC for VLDB Journal, PC co-chair for VLDB 2023, co-EiC of Proceedings of the VLDB (PVLDB). In the past, she has served or serves as associate editor for top conference (such as ACM SIGMOD and VLDB) and journals (TKDE, VLDB Journal), as well as in various organization roles, including EDBT 2023 and ICDE 2021 sponsorship chair, and general chair for ACM SIGMOD 2016.
Associate Professor Paraskevi Nomikou (F) received a PhD from UoA in 2004 and has participated in more than 80 oceanographic cruises that have focused on the study of fault zones, submarine volcanism, mud volcanoes, landslides and slope stability in Med Sea, Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. She has developed a unique understanding of the new-technological methods for sea exploration and successfully integrated them into international research programs. Paraskevi is focused in forming key research alliances between scientists in different disciplines thus creating powerful interdisciplinary synergies. Her involvement in various EU projects and high volume of publications has established strong collaborations with world-class institutions across Europe (Univ. of Oxford, Univ. of Milan, Univ. of Girona, IPGP, CNRS, Univ. of Hamburg, Univ. of Bristol and ETHZ) and USA (e.g. URI, OET, WHOI, NOAA, Oregon Univ.).
Athina Zampara has studied Physics (University of Athens) and holds a master degree in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (National and Technical University of Athens), as well as in Studies of Education (Hellenic Open University). She is currently enrolled for a PhD at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Athens and she is exploring the EU policies that concern the domain of History and Philosophy of Science. Athina has extensive experience in project management of projects in ICT, research, and education. The last 10 years she works as a Project Officer for European Commission’s institutions and bodies and for the Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation (FP7, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe). Currently she works for EIC Pathfinder, which is one of the funding schemes of the programme of the European Innovation Council. Pathfinder supports the exploration of bold ideas for radically new technologies.
Litsa Panayotopoulos is a business strategy advisor who regularly participates in international events as a key-note speaker, judge and moderator. A committed advocate of innovation, Litsa creates opportunities for entrepreneurship and managerial strategy as among others, President of Intale S.A. Retail Solutions, N.E. V.P. of Papapostolou S.A. Medical Technologies, Treasurer of the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce (Former Secretary General) and Founder and Chair of its Innovation, Education and Entrepreneurship Committee. Litsa is on the Business Advisory Council of Athens University International MBA, the Greek-Serbian Business Council and Citizens Movement. Her extensive career has been built in major systems and projects all over the world, amongst others, Control Data. She developed and managed: Geranos SA, Oracle SA (subsidiary) S.E. Europe, Greece and Cyprus, and OTE Academy (Greek Telecommunications Academy). She is Honorary president of SEN/Junior Achievement Greece (founding member), Hellenic Management Association (EEDE), ex-member of IOBE, Greek Management Association (EASE), Hellenic Corporate Governance Council and ex-President A.L.B.A Business University. She holds a BSc and MSc in Computer Science and Management from London University.