Kountouri Phoebe

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 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, London School of Economics. Prof. Koundouri holds MPhil and a PhD 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 - a number of 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 Europae, elected Member of Board of the Trustees of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) , member of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) Board and 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.