Dr Maria Antonopoulou graduated the Chemistry Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (2008) and received her master’s degree from the Inter-departmental MSc Program "Sustainable Management of Protected Areas", Direction: Technology Management for Protected Areas, from the University of Ioannina (2010). Since 2013, she holds a PhD from the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management, School of Engineering, University of Patras. Her PhD thesis entitled “Photocatalytic degradation of priority organic pollutants in aquatic systems” has been granted by Heracleitus II grant, co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund – ESF) and Greek national funds. Her research interests are mainly focused on the study of the presence and transformation of priority and emerging pollutants in environmental systems and the development of advanced oxidation processes for water treatment.  She has research experience on environmental technology and chemistry areas, such as (i) development and application of advanced mass spectrometric techniques for the identification of organic contaminants and structural elucidation of their metabolites and degradation products on aquatic and soil systems, (ii) development and application of modern extraction and separation techniques (SPE, QuEChERS, LLE) for the identification of organic contaminants on aquatic and soil systems, (iii) application of instrumental analytical techniques for the evaluation of environmental protection technologies and for the identification of pollutants (organic and inorganic) in environmental matrices, (iv) ecotoxicity study of environmental pollutants (pharmaceuticals, pesticides, emerging contaminants etc.) and evaluation of their genotoxic effects in vitro conditions. In the present, she is an assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Engineering of University of Patras and a collaborating researcher of Photo-catalytic Processes and Environmental Chemistry Laboratory (Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology- NCSR Demokritos). She has published more than 67 papers in international peer-reviewed journals (>2100 citations, h-index: 26) and three book chapters. She has presented more than 50 papers in national and international conferences and possesses one patent. She has received funding for her research from various research councils and participated as postdoctoral researcher in various research projects at the University of Patras, University of Ioannina and Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology- NCSR “Demokritos”. She has participated in 10 European and national projects and has been awarded with L’Oreal Unesco Award 2019 for Women in Science. She is also a Management Committee member of the COST Action “Taste and Odor in early diagnosis of source and drinking Water Problems” (CA18225). She is scientific referee for various

international journals (with high impact factor) in the fields of Chemistry and Environmental Science and Technology. In addition, she teaches undergraduate courses (e.g. Environmental Remediation of Contaminated Sites, Environmental Pollution Control, Biochemical processes) and supervises undergraduate and PhD students at the Department of Environmental Engineering of University of Patras.
Keywords: Water treatment, Advanced oxidation processes, Photocatalysis, Aquatic pollution, Emerging contaminants, Taste and odour