Cypriot professor Phoebe Koundouri honored for contribution to Science

Source: Press release

On Thursday, the 23rd of March, Prof. Phoebe Koundouri was awarded the Academy of Athens Excellence in Science Award 2023 for her contribution to the advancement of the Science of the Marine Environment by the President of the Academy of Athens, Michael-Konstantinos Stathopoulos, and the Secretary-General, Christos Zerefos.

This Award, given every four years, constitutes the epitome of academic recognition in Greece.

Prof. Phoebe Koundouri is a world-renowned environmental economics professor and global leader in sustainable development. She is a Professor (the university’s highest academic rank) at the School of Economics at the Athens University of Economics and a Business Professor at the Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Before her election at the Athens University of Economics and Business, she held academic positions at the University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Reading, and London School of Economics. Prof. Koundouri holds a MPhil and a Ph.D. in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Cambridge. For her studies, she received a full scholarship from the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust.
She is widely recognized as a pioneer in innovative, human-centric, interdisciplinary systems for the sustainable interaction between nature, society, and the economy. She is included within the official Stanford University list of the Top 2 % of world scientists and she is listed in the 1% of most-cited women economists in the world, with 15 published books and more than 600 published peer-reviewed scientific articles, more than 100 interdisciplinary research projects (with competitive international funding - several which also concern Cyprus) and head/member of the editorial board in more than 30 scientific journals of international prestige.

Prof. Koundouri is an elected member of Academia Europaea, an elected Member of the Board of the Trustees of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), a member of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) Board and a member of the Nominating Committee for the Prize in Economics Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, The Royal Swedish Academy of Science. In 2019, she was elected President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE), the biggest scientific association in the field, with more than 1500 member institutions, from more than 75 countries. In 2020 she received the prestigious European Research Council ERC Synergy Grant, entitled: “Smart Water Futures: Designing the Next Generation of Urban Drinking Water Systems”. Currently, this is the largest research project in the world on urban water systems.

In 2023, Prof. Phoebe Koundouri has been awarded the Academy of Athens Excellence in Science Award 2023 for her contribution to the advancement of the Science of the Marine Environment by the President of the Academy of Athens, Michael-Konstantinos Stathopoulos, and the Secretary-General, Christos Zerefos. This Award, given every four years, constitutes the epitome of academic recognition in Greece.
Over the past three decades, she has given speeches and lectures at high-level international forums around the world and received academic excellence awards including the EAERE European Research Project Award, best paper awards, paper with the greatest impact on policy-making, etc.

Prof. Koundouri is chair of the SDSN Global Climate Hub, co-chair of SDSN Europe and SDSN Greece, while she is the founder of the Alliance of Excellence for Research and Innovation on Aeiphoria (AE4RIA), an initiative for collaboration between research institutions which she co-leads (ReSEES Laboratory and Stochastic Modeling and Applications Laboratory at Athens University of Economics and Business, the Sustainable Development Unit (SD.U) at ATHENA Research Center), Innovation Acceleration Hubs (SDSN Global Climate Hub, EIT Climate KIC Hub Greece, MENA Maritime ClimAccelerator and BRIGAID Connect Association) and associations and science-policy networks: UN SDSN, SDSN Europe, SDSN Greece, EAERE, NEXUS Cluster and Water Europe.

AE4RIA involves more than 200 researchers (economists, mathematicians, statisticians, engineers, natural scientists, as well as experts from the social and human sciences) with the mission of shaping the necessary human-centered techno-economic transformation toward the joint implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals UN 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the European Green Deal. AE4RIA's work has influenced the formulation of European and Global policies related to the management of natural resources, and the crises of climate change and ecosystem collapse.

Prof. Koundouri is one of the Commissioners of the prestigious Lancet Commission on COVID-19 for which she co-chairs the “Green Recovery” Task Force. She co-leads with Prof. Jeff Sachs (president of SDSN) the UN SDSN Senior Working Group on “Transformation Pathways for the implementation of EGD and the SDGs”. She is also a member of the National Climate Change Committee of Greece, of the Ministry of Energy and the Environment, was a member of the 2021 Pissarides Committee (10-year Greek Development Plan) chaired by Nobelist Prof. C. Pissarides, and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) delegate and European Climate Pact Ambassador for the European Commission.
Prof. Koundouri acts as a scientific advisor to the European Commission, World Bank, European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, OECD, UN, NATO, WHO, World Water Council and various other Multilateral Institutions, as well as numerous national and international foundations and organizations. She also advises national governments across the world.

Prof. Koundouri lives in Greece (Athens) with her husband, Prof. Nikitas Pittis, and their three daughters: Chrysilia, Billie and Athena.