Maria Petropoulou

Maria Petropoulou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). She holds a PhD in Physics from NKUA (2014) and has held prestigious fellowships, including the NASA Einstein Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (2013–2016) and the Lyman Jr. Spitzer Postdoctoral Fellowship at Princeton University (2017–2020). Her research focuses on high-energy and multi-messenger astrophysics, particularly radiative processes in astrophysical plasmas, particle acceleration, and neutrino production in extreme environments like blazar jets and black hole accretion systems.

Education:

• BSc in Physics, NKUA (2008)
• MSc in Astrophysics, Astronomy & Mechanics, NKUA (2010)
• PhD in Physics, NKUA (2014)

Research interests encompass magnetic reconnection in relativistic plasmas, hadronic processes in active galactic nuclei, and the interplay between cosmic rays and neutrino emission. She has published 59 peer-reviewed articles and contributed to international collaborations such as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Awards include the Best PhD Thesis Award from the Hellenic Astronomical Society (2015) and the Fondation MERAC Award (2016).

Her work bridges observational data with theoretical models, advancing our understanding of extreme astrophysical phenomena. She actively participates in global initiatives like the Blazar Hadronic Code Comparison Project and contributes to next-generation instrumentation such as the High Energy X-ray Probe (HEX-P).