Dr Maria Papathanasiou is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London. Dr Papathanasiou leads the Life Science and Process Systems Engineering lab, focusing on the development of digital twins and control methodologies for process understanding, optimisation and automation. Applications include personalised therapies, (bio-) pharmaceuticals, energy & food systems engineering. She has received her 5-year Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and her MSc and PhD degrees in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. Prior to her permanent appointment with Imperial College London, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering and the Energy Institute at Texas A&M University.

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Dr Papathanasiou’s research activities are supported by EPSRC, UKRI, as well as industrial partnerships with GSK, Pall Biologics, AstraZeneca, TrakCel Lt and others. Recent influential contributions include the development of supply chain models to address challenges related to efficient and speedy vaccine delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Outcomes of this work have contributed to Royal Society’s DELVE report on SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development and implementation. Dr Papathanasiou & collaborators have been awarded IChemE’s Global Team Award and the Imperial College President’s Awards for Excellence in Research (2021). Dr Papathanasiou has co-authored over 35 full length and peer-reviewed conference publications and 3 book chapters that include contributions to Scientific Reports Nature, AIChE Journal and Computers and Chemical Engineering. She has strong international representation to scientific and industrial conferences with over 40 oral presentations, including invited talks.

 

Dr Papathanasiou serves as Social Media Chair for AIChE’s CAST Division and was recently elected as the 2025 Programming Coordinator for CAST’s Area 10E Information Management and Intelligent Systems. Dr Papathanasiou is the Interim Secretary of IChemE’s Computer Aided Process Engineering Special Interest Group. She is a member of EPSRC’s Early Career Researcher Forum, and she is actively involved in Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives through EPSRC-UKRI cross-Strategic Advisory Teams EDI committee.

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Dr Papathanasiou is a recipient of EPSRC's New Investigator Award (2022) totalling > £500k,  focusing on the development of a systematic framework and software platform to enable integrated process design, optimisation and control in bioprocesses. She has been recently awarded IChemE's Junior Sargent Medal for her pioneering work and research program on personalised healthcare systems engineering and bioprocess optimisation and model-based control.

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