Lab Director
Dr Andrie Panayiotou is Associate Professor in Public Health at the Cyprus University of Technology, where she heads the Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Genetics research lab. She is an epidemiologist with special interest in cardiovascular health and disease prevention, focusing on risk factors and biomarkers (genetic, biochemical, environmental and social). The CVEG lab coordinates several epidemiological studies (CESA, DEpICT, CARTESIAN-CY) and serves as coordinating center for the Cyprus National Registry for Familial Hypercholesterolemia (Cy-FH) for which AP is National Lead Investigator and member of the EAS FHSC network. AP is a founding member of the Cyprus Atherosclerosis Society and elected Secretary (2019-), a founding member and currently elected Vice-president (2025-) of the Cyprus Epidemiology and Public Health Association, while she has also served at the National Bioethics Committee and heads the Cyprus Unit on Bioethics under the International Chair in Bioethics.
Lab Members
Dr. Galatia Photiou is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at CVEG Lab and she is currently a Researcher within the Resilient Society Department of the Eratosthenes CoE working on Epidemics/ Health area. Galatia is an epidemiologist with a PhD in Environmental and Public Health from the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) focusing on Cardiovascular Epidemiology. The aim of her PhD was to decode the effect of social gradient and area indicators on arterial health: From the community to the individual and back (DEpICT study). Galatia has an MSc in Environmental Health from Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health in association of Harvard School of Public Health of Cyprus University of Technology and a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Crete. Through these years she has gained experience in both research-led and project management roles at the Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Genetics Research Lab (CVEG Lab) group at CUT under the supervision of Dr. Panayiotou (Lab Head). She was a co-investigator of the CARTESIAN – CY: “Covid-19 effects on ARTErial StIffness and vascular AgiNg”, a prospective cohort multicenter collaborative study on medium- and long-term vascular consequences of COVID-19 recently published at the European Heart Journal (IF: 39.3) and receiving widespread attention (including a Nature aging Research highlight article). She has been a project manager and research associate for the Erasmus+ small scale programme e-CREDENTIAL: Educating, Creating awareness and Empowering women with familial hypercholesterolemia and contributing to the development of a national patient registry for Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) in Cyprus (Cyprus-FH). She also has extensive teaching experience in various fields of Public Health and is experienced in study design field work and study logistics, including relevant data acquiring and analysis. Her main research interest lies in the interplay between individual and area-level factors for arteriosclerosis and arterial ageing.
Paraskevi Kinni holds a PhD in Public Health from the Cyprus University of Technology, as well as an MSc in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, an MBA, and a BSc in Chemistry. Her doctoral research focused on the health effects of climate change, desert dust storms, and air pollution on children’s respiratory health, with particular emphasis on public and stakeholder awareness and practices in Cyprus.
Since 2017, she has been involved in European-funded research projects at the Medical School of the University of Cyprus and the Cyprus University of Technology, including the MEDEA project (LIFE Programme) and the RESPECT project (CERV Programme). She currently works as Project Manager of the CY-ESM (Cyprus Empowered Surveillance Mechanism) at the Medical School of the University of Cyprus, an EU4Health-funded initiative aiming to establish a modern, integrated epidemiological surveillance system for infectious diseases in Cyprus.
Her experience includes statistical analysis, project management, and the coordination of multidisciplinary research teams. Her research interests include environmental and climate epidemiology, air pollution and desert dust storms, infectious diseases, and maternal and child health.
She is a member of the Cyprus Epidemiology and Public Health Association (CyEPHA).
Georgia Livieri
PhD Candidate
Georgia E. Livieri is a Digital Health Ethicist with extensive experience in EU-funded research projects and international bioethics initiatives. In her professional capacity, she serves as Ethics Manager or Advisor in multiple Horizon Europe consortia and has chaired several External Ethics Advisory Boards.
She is a PhD candidate in Bioethics and Public Health Policy at the Cyprus University of Technology. Her doctoral research, funded by the Leventis Foundation, focuses on developing an ethics framework that functions as an educational tool to support researchers in six key sectors: pharmaceutical industry, hospital and clinical environments, NGOs, universities and research institutes, computer science and technology companies, and the government. She is also a Research Associate at the Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Genetics Research Lab (CUT) and the Applied Philosophy Research Lab (NKUA).
As an Ethics Educator, Ms. Livieri designs and delivers interdisciplinary training in Greece and abroad that helps researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and industry professionals integrate ethical reasoning into the design, development, and deployment of digital health technologies. Her work aims to translate ethical principles into practical tools that support responsible innovation, AI governance, and human-centered decision-making across the healthcare ecosystem.
Ms. Livieri maintains an active presence in both national and international conferences, contributing to the scientific dialogue on digital health ethics, AI in healthcare, technology governance, and contemporary bioethics challenges.
She also leads the Executive Committee of the Cyprus Bioethics Unit (International Chair in Bioethics, Haifa) and serves on the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Society of Pharmaceutical Medicine (EL.E.F.I.).
Elena Leonidou is a Medical Doctor and Cardiology Resident currently pursuing her PhD at the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences / Environmental and Public Health, School of Health Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology. Her doctoral research focuses on cardiovascular health within the broader field of Environmental and Public Health.
She holds an MSc in Heart Failure – Cardio-Oncology – Cardiac Rehabilitation from the University of Thessaly, graduating with distinction, and a Medical Degree from the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. Elena has clinical experience in Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and COVID-19 care, along with active involvement in teaching, emergency response training, and symposium organization.
Her research to date includes peer-reviewed publications in cardiovascular medicine, case reports, and contributions to national clinical guideline development. Her scientific interests center on heart failure, arterial health, and the interaction of clinical and environmental factors in cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Maria Ioannou, MD
PhD Student
ORCID:
Maria Ioannou is a Medical Doctor and Cardiology Resident currently undertaking her PhD at the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences / Environmental and Public Health, School of Health Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology. Her doctoral work centers on cardiovascular health within the wider context of Environmental and Public Health.
She holds an MSc in Heart Failure – Cardio-Oncology – Cardiac Rehabilitation from the University of Thessaly, graduating with distinction, and an MD from the University of Crete. Maria’s clinical background spans Internal Medicine and Cardiology, complemented by active involvement in emergency response training, scientific congresses, and contributions to national clinical protocol development.
Her research portfolio includes peer-reviewed publications in cardiovascular medicine, encompassing case reports and review articles. Her scientific interests focus on arterial health, heart failure, cardiometabolic disease, and the interplay between clinical and environmental factors in cardiovascular outcomes.
Magda Anthousi
PhD Student
ORCID:
Magda Anthousi, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (2001). She worked for five years in the pharmaceutical industry at Medochemie, and subsequently, from 2003 to 2021, at the National Bank of Greece, where she gained extensive experience across various areas of banking operations. During this period, she also obtained the General Banking Diploma from the American Bankers Association.
In 2021, she completed with distinction (grade 9.2/10) her Master’s degree in Public Health at the School of Health Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology. Since then, she has been collaborating with the Cyprus University of Technology as an external research associate, contributing to research projects in the field of public health.
In parallel, during the 2024–2025 academic year, she worked as a Chemistry teacher in public secondary education.
She currently holds the position of Project Manager for European projects at FH Europe Foundation, where she actively contributes to the design and implementation of initiatives aimed at promoting cardiovascular health and prevention at the European level.
Collaborators
Dr. Nicos Middleton
Associate Professor in Health Research Methodology and Biostatistics
ORCID: 0000-0001-6358-8591
Dr. Nicos Middleton, BSc (UCL, 1997), MSc Health Care Decision Analysis (LSE and LSHTM, 1998), PhD Epidemiology (Dept Social & Community Medicine, now Dept Population Health Sciences, University of Bristol, 2004) is Associate Professor in Health Research Methodology and Biostatistics at the Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology. Previous affiliations include the Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol (Lecturer in Medical Statistics, 2004-2005), the Harvard School of Public Health (postdoctoral research fellow, 2006-2008) and the Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health (visiting Lecturer, 2006-2008).
At CUT, he teaches a range of research-orientated subjects: Research Methodology, Basic and Applied Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Evidence-based practice and Scientific Writing Skills, at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. He has supervised or co-supervised >30 doctoral and postgraduate students and young researchers. In 2024, he was awarded the first Excellence in Teaching award, a new scheme introduced by the University. He has served as Department Chair (2014-2016) and Dean of School of Health Sciences (2016, 2018-2020).
His core interests are on health inequalities, with a focus on socio-environmental and psychosocial determinants of health, as well as health services evaluation. Dr Middleton has led or participated as co-investigator in several research projects, funded by European or local agencies. To date, his track record includes >150 articles in peer-reviewed journals (GoogleScholar: >6000 citations, h-index=42, i10-index=93). Over the years, he has disseminated this work widely at major conferences, including the annual European Public Health conference and IEA World Congress of Epidemiology,
Since public health policy and practice are not well developed in Cyprus. Dr Middleton believes in the role of the academic community to advocate through formulating “policy-driven research” i.e. research for the purpose of driving policy, and thus, the need for increased integration of methodological approaches within a participatory action research and learning framework.
In the period 2015-2017, he was the Scientific Coordinator of the “BrEaST start in life” project (EEA Grants, 2014-2017) – a nationwide longitudinal study of mother-newborn dyads across all maternity clinics in Cyprus which provided first-time national breastfeeding indicators and explore the determinants of initiation, continuation and exclusivity of breastfeeding, including the adherence of maternity clinics to the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative 10 steps for successful breastfeeding. He is currently a member of the ad hoc Working Group of the National Breastfeeding Committee for the development for the assessment process of maternity clinics according to the WHO Baby-Friendly Initiative certification criteria (2021-)
He was PI of “Baby Buddy Forward” (Erasmus+, 2017-2021), a participatory action research project, which co-developed the Baby Buddy webapp with the active engagement of all local stakeholders, a purposeful multilingual digital platform for enhancing health literacy among various socio-cultural communities in Cyprus during the transition to parenthood. Soon after launch, Baby Buddy was awarded three awards: Cyprus Responsible Business Gold Award 2020 for “Prevention and Health”, Healthcare Business Bronze Award 2020 for “Contribution to health by civic society”, Cyprus Mother and Baby Award 2021 for “Best Information Service”.
The findings of the Baby Buddy project have led to two sequel projects under the Respectful Maternity Care framework, which he coordinated: “Baby Buddy Communicator” (Erasmus+, 2022-2024) on enhancing commination skills training of healthcare providers and “RESPECT” (CERV, 2022-2024) on shifting current practices around shared decision-making, informed choices and consent.
Dr Middleton is member of the International Epidemiological Association and the Society for Social Medicine (UK). During 2016-2020, he served as Government Representative in the Board of Directors of the Health Insurance Organization (responsible for the Cyprus healthcare system reforms-GeSY). He also represented the CUT School of Health Sciences in the Working Group for the Human Resources Planning (of the Capacity Master Plan, Ministry of Health (2022- ). He was a Founding member, Vice-President (2022-2024) and currently President elect of the Board of the newly established (2022) Cyprus Epidemiology and Public Health Association, national representative of Cyprus in the European Public Health Association and affiliated member of the International Epidemiological Association.
Dr Ourania Kolokotroni is a Paediatrician with a PhD in Epidemiology, Assistant Professor at the School of Health Sciences at the Cyprus University of Technology. Dr Kolokotroni started her research career as the Research Coordinator of the Paediatric Respiratory Research Unit at the Cyprus International Institute for the Environment and Public Health and worked within a team that laid foundations for epidemiological research in Cyprus. She was involved in the organization and conduction of large population studies that investigated the association between obesity and chronic diseases such as asthma in children. In addition, her PhD work was on the prevalence of Hypovitaminosis D, its determinants and association with asthma. More recently Dr Kolokotroni participated in a number of applied research projects aiming to improve health promotion services provided by local NGOs. She was the Researcher Liaison between the Cyprus Breastfeeding Organization and the research team of the Cyprus University of Technology for the BrEaST Start in Life Project that investigated breastfeeding rates and determinants of breastfeeding in Cyprus. She also participated in the Erasmus project Baby Buddy Forward which used the participatory action research approach to transfer and contextualize a health digital app developed for parents in the UK to the Cyprus setting. Within the context of her clinical work and research on health literacy, she has been involved in activities to deal with improved communication with parents and health professionals on vaccine hesitancy.
Dr. Angelos Kassianos is a Lecturer in Health Psychology at Cyprus University of Technology (CUT), where he leads the Behavioral Science in Health – BSiH Lab. With a PhD in Health Psychology from the University of Surrey, Dr. Kassianos has broad research and teaching experience across the UK and Cyprus, including roles at UCL, Cambridge, and Imperial College London. His work centers on behavioral medicine, public health, psychosocial oncology, digital health interventions, and determinants of health behaviors such as vaccination and medication adherence. He has led and collaborated on major projects funded by national and European bodies, contributed as editor and reviewer for leading journals, and served on multiple international committees. Dr. Kassianos is a recipient of awards such as the EHPS Young Researcher Award (2018) and the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation Early Career Researcher Award (2020), and he is active as a board member and representative within several National and European scientific societies.
Dr. Panayiotis Kouis
Visiting Lecturer at the Medical School
Member of the Respiratory Physiology Laboratory
ORCID: 0000-0003-0511-5352
Dr. Panayiotis Kouis is a Visiting Lecturer at the Medical School of the University of Cyprus and member of the Respiratory Physiology Laboratory. His research activities primarily focus on the study of chronic respiratory diseases with a special interest in the health impact of environmental exposures and climate change on sensitive subgroups and he is experienced in the performance of observational studies and randomized trials, as well as in evidence synthesis and cost-effectiveness in healthcare. Furthermore, since 2013, he has been collaborating with the Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Genetics Laboratory at Cyprus University of Technology and has been involved in several research activities focusing on cardiovascular health and epidemiology. Dr Kouis is also a faculty member at the Cyprus Harvard Endowment Program for the Environment and Public Health and a member of the ERN-LUNG European Reference Network and the European Respiratory Society BEAT-PCD Clinical Research Collaboration.
Dr. Andreas Kousios MD, MSc, FRCP
Consultant nephrologist at Nefronitda Medical Centre
ORCID: 0000-0003-0042-1836
Dr. Andreas Kousios is a consultant nephrologist at Nefronitda Medical Centre. He graduated from the University of Thessaloniki Medical School and trained in general medicine and nephrology in Nicosia (Cyprus).
Dr Andreas Kousios continued his clinical training at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in 2016. He served as a consultant Nephrologist at Imperial (St Mary’s Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital), one of the largest referral nephrology and transplant centres in Europe, providing specialist care for a population of over 4 million in West London. He has expertise in chronic kidney disease and general Nephrology, Transplantation, Living Donation and Paraprotein-related renal disease.
Dr Andreas Kousios holds a master’s degree in molecular medicine and genetics and a master’s degree in Epidemiology. He has presented clinical research work at international and national meetings and published in high impact peer-reviewed journals.
He is also actively involved in education and medical training as an associate clinical professor of Nephrology at the Medical School of the European University of Cyprus and has served as an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College London.
Dr Andreas Kousios is an elected member on the board of the European Kidney Transplant Association (EKITA) and the Onco-nephrology working group of the European Renal Association.
Dr. Angeliki Mouzarou MD, FESC, Edu, MSc, MScHM, PhDc
ORCID: 0000-0002-6687-5075
Dr. Angeliki Mouzarou, is a consultant cardiologist with extensive experience in clinical practice, research, and medical education. Currently, Dr. Mouzarou is serving as the Director of the Cardiology Department at the GH of Paphos/SHSO of Cyprus, since 2/2024. She is the Academic Clinical Lead at University of Nicosia’s Medical School, at P G Hospital, since 1/2025. Dr Mouzarou is also a European Resuscitation Council Educator, a role she has embraced since June 2023, contributing to the advancement of resuscitation training and guidelines. She has been a member of the Cyprus National Task Force since December 2022, working on strategies to combat cardiovascular diseases at a national level. Her research contributions include numerous publications about acute heart failure, emergency cardiology, hypertensive heart disease, diabetic cardiomyopathy, pulmonary embolism, and genetic factors in cardiovascular diseases and medical education.
Master’s Students
Bianca Wysoczanski
Anna Yayloyan
Petra K. Kpekpena
Christine Contreras
Maria Skarpari
Andreas Petrou
Antigoni Michaelidou
Eleana Xenophontos