معرفی
Maria Drakaki is Professor of Humanistic Engineering and Dean of the School of Science and Technology at the International Hellenic University. She also serves as Director of the Institute for Refugee Flows and Crisis Management of the University of Macedonia, and leads multiple postgraduate programs including the MSc in Environmental Management and Sustainability and the MSc in Humanitarian Logistics and Crisis Management.
Dr. Drakaki earned her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin (1992), an M.Sc. in VLSI System Design from the University of Westminster (2004), and a B.A. in Physics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1986). Her academic career progressed from research positions at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki to faculty roles at various Greek institutions before her current position.
Her research focuses on humanitarian engineering, AI methods for disaster management, humanitarian logistics, decision support systems, and supply chain management. She has pioneered approaches that combine advanced computational techniques with humanitarian applications, particularly in crisis response and management. Her work bridges the gap between traditional engineering disciplines and humanitarian practice.
Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong trend toward applying artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning and natural language processing techniques, to humanitarian challenges. Her research spans disaster response, migration management, supply chain resilience during crises, and community-based partnerships for resilience building. She has increasingly focused on social media analysis for disaster management and the application of transformer models for consequence identification from accident narratives.
- Fulbright Scholar
- Best paper award at the International Conference on Information Systems Architecture and Technology (2017)
- Humanitarian Engineering Lectureship award from UT Austin (2024)
Dr. Drakaki supervises 4 PhD candidates and has participated in numerous European research projects including the European Qualifications – Refugees and Recognition 4 (EQUAL), Transforming Graduate Education for Green and Sustainable Future (T-Green), and the Humanitarian Engineering project with UT Austin. She serves on editorial boards including as Associate Editor for the Data Analytics for Social Impact Section of Frontiers in Big Data. She directs the Institute for Refugee Flows and Crisis Management and has established strong research collaborations across Europe.
