Paraskevi Polymenakou

Paraskevi N. Polymenakou is Researcher in Environmental Microbiology with specialization in extreme environments with a strong emphasis on submarine volcanoes and hydrothermal vents. Her research integrates molecular microbial ecology and monitoring of these extreme ecosystems using intelligent vehicles, in order to get a better understanding of their microbial diversity, functions and resilience. 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 and the genomic observation of ecosystems vulnerable to changes. She is the scientific responsible of the Environmental Microbiology Lab at IMBBC. She has also initiated the IMBBC microbial strain collection from extreme environments for biotechnological exploration. She has been involved as Coordinator, Principal Investigator or Collaborator in 24 international and national research projects. Her research work has been presented in 50 publications in peer-reviewed international journals and in 16 Book Chapters. The cumulative journal impact factor is 326.6 and the average is 6.404 (ISI metrics; h-index: 26). Her publications so far have received 2730 citations (Scopus– 12/12/2024).