Dr. Maria Panou is currently holding a position as a Research Director and Head of Department ‘Human factors and vehicle technologies’ at the Hellenic Institute of Transport of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas. She is an Electronics & Computer Engineer, with an MSc on Advanced Control from the University of Liverpool (1997) and the University of Manchester (1998) respectively. She has a PhD on Personalised ADAS warnings for drivers and infomobility services from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2008).
Her main fields of expertise are smart innovative technologies for road safety and connected mobility, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and C-ITS, road automation, AI in transport applications, electromobility, ADAS warning algorithms, HMI and personalization, personalised infomobility services for travelers, passengers and drivers, inclusive urban mobility, traveler modelling, transportation technologies for elderly and persons with special needs, smart cities applications and technologies, circular economy, advanced control, innovative simulation training tools. She has participated in over 35 research projects (European and national), with strong experience in managerial and supervisory tasks as she is/has acted as Coordinator/Technical/Quality Manager and as Scientific Responsible on behalf of the Hellenic Institute of Transport in numerous research projects, namely: SAFE-UP (H2020-861570), SKILLFUL (H2020-723989), AVENUE (H2020-769033), AUTOPILOT (H2020-731993), Drive2theFuture (H2020-815001), etc.
She is acting as expert of research proposals evaluation for various entities, including the European Commission. She is the President of the Scientific Council of HIT, a Member of the Board of HUMANIST Association, Member of the Editorial Board of the ETRR Journal (European Transport Research Review – An Open Access Journal) of ECTRI; she has also been Vice-President of the Hellenic Institute of Electric Vehicles during 2019-2020. She holds over 32 publications in scientific journals and books and over 90 in international conferences.