Fotini Kokou

Dr. Fotini Kokou is an Assistant Professor in the Aquaculture and Fisheries group at Wageningen University & Research since January 2020. She holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Crete and has conducted postdoctoral research at the Agriculture Research Organization (Israel) and Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (Greece). Her research focuses on fish physiological functions, gut microbiota interactions, and environmental influences, integrating microbial ecology, physiology, and genomics. She teaches courses including Nutrition and Health in Aquaculture, MSc internships, and Aquaculture Production Systems.

Dr. Kokou’s research interests include microbial community dynamics in fish guts, effects of diet and environmental stressors (temperature, diet composition), and host genetic influences on microbiomes. She leads projects like REPROGRAM (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020) exploring nutritional programming for disease resistance and EATFISH (MSCA-ITN) addressing sustainable aquaculture practices. She supervises PhD candidates Elisavet Syropoulou and Haniswita Fino.

She serves as an Associate Editor for Genomics and Animal Microbiome Journal, and a Review Editor for Frontiers in Marine Science. Her work aims to enhance aquaculture sustainability through improved feed formulations, waste management, and microbiome manipulation.