Paraskevi Polymenakou

Paraskevi N. Polymenakou is Research Director in Environmental Microbiology with specialization in extreme environments. Her research integrates geomicrobiology, molecular microbial ecology, marine genomics and autonomous ocean observations to uncover how microbial life responds to and interacts with active Earth systems, particularly submarine volcanoes. She is currently the PI of the HFRI Project BIORESIST, and two HORIZON Projects (MERLIN and NEXTMARINE). She has contributed to research on the microbiology of the deep subsurface through her participation in the groundbreaking IODP Exp. 398. Her expertise extends to bioprospecting genomic and metagenomic data from volcanic systems. She is the Head of the Environmental Microbiology Lab at IMBBC and the Scientific Responsible of the IMBBC microbial strain collection from extreme environments. She has been involved as Coordinator, PI or Collaborator in 27 international and national research projects and she has been the Chief Scientist of many Oceanographic Expeditions. Her research work has been presented in 53 publications in peer-reviewed international journals and in 18 Book Chapters. The cumulative journal impact factor is 349.9 (ISI metrics; h-index: 26). Her publications have received 3110 citations (06/07/2026).