Papathanasiou Martha

Martha Papathanassiou is the Public Relations Officer for the EU-funded project SESAME, coordinated by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). She assumed her duties at the HCMR in January 2007.

Ms Papathanassiou completed her B.Sc. (Honours) Degree in Marine Sciences at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, in 2002. The main research focus of her studies was ecology and environmental pollution and policy.

Upon completion of her studies, she decided to focus on science communication and journalism, as well as on public relations and the benefits of communicating science and its results to the general public. For this reason, she completed a Master’s Degree in Communications Studies, at the University of Leeds, UK.

She has since worked in the field of publishing and communications at various posts. Her first important career opening came at Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins (LWW), a London publishing house where she worked as an Editorial Coordinator, responsible for running five bi-monthly medical review journals, including commissioning of authors, editors and section editors to deliver timely manuscripts to the UK and USA Production Offices.

In the communications field she worked in the non-profit organisation Dairy Council, in London, UK, which provides science based information on the role of dairy foods as part of a healthy balanced diet and lifestyle. Her role as Press and Communications Officer entailed monitoring daily media coverage through press cuttings, generating creative ideas for press releases and responding to journalists, acting as a media spokesperson as appropriate and dealing with media and public enquiries as required.

Since 2007 she has worked on the SESAME project, in which she is responsible for disseminating project results to end-users, via press releases, bi-weekly news bulletins, and organisation of relevant events. Additionally, she updated the project’s website on a regular basis (http://www.sesame-ip.eu/), while simultaneously designing, compiling, and editing the project’s yearly Newsletter. She further participated in relevant project conferences and acted as the project’s Public Relations Officer at relevant meetings and international conferences. In addition to her regular duties, she edits and proofreads official EU documents and projects, as required, based upon her extensive experience in editing and proofreading.

She is experienced in organising local and international stakeholder meetings under SESAME’s framework, with the participation of distinguished scientists, politicians, journalists and representatives from NGOs and other research institutions. As part of the HCMR’s staff, she has helped in organising various international and local scientific conferences.