The research team has extensive experience and internationally acknowledged published work on residential segregation, gentrification, housing and on the social geography of Athens. Apart from the Principal Investigator (PI) and the two non-remunerated members, the team comprises young post-doc researchers and research collaborators.
Research team
Principal Investigator
Thomas Maloutas
Emeritus Professor at the Department of Geography, Harokopio University. Former Director of the Institute of Urban and Rural Sociology of the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE) (2001-2012), Professor at the Department of Planning, University of Thessaly (1991-2009) and General Secretary for Research & Technology (2015-2016). His work is related to the changing social structures in metropolitan areas in the era of capitalist globalisation with a focus on issues of segregation and gentrification related to housing and broader welfare regimes. His research and published work refer mainly to the South European urban context and especially to Athens.
Non-remunerated members
Nikos Karadimitriou
Associate Professor in Urban Development and Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning (UCL). His research interests include housing and property development, the relationship between social differentiations and the production of the built environment as well as institutional change in spatial regulation and spatial production systems, in the context of climate change. His research has been funded by JPI Urban Europe and Horizon 2020, among others. He has published several peer-reviewed journal papers and two books: Planning, Risk and Property Development: Urban Regeneration in England, France and the Netherlands (Routledge, 2013) and The State of Addis Ababa 2021: Towards a Healthier City (UN Habitat, 2021).
Dimitris Emmanuel
Dimitris Emmanuel has studied Architecture in NTU, Athens, received a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. from LSE and has since mainly worked on the social and economic analysis of housing and urban development and, more recently, on social classes and urban consumption. He has been the Head of Research and Housing Policy Studies in DEPOS (1979-2003) and since 2004, a research director in EKKE. His more recent publications include Supply of Planned Land, Housing and Prices in Athens (1984-2004), Athens, NCSR, 2008.
Post-doctoral researchers
Konstantinos Vakalopoulos
He holds a Phd in the field of Social Geography from Harokopeio University of Athens. His thesis with title «Areas of deprivation, vulnerable groups and neighbourhood effects: the case of Athens, concerns how the social conditions of a residential area in central Athens, influenced its residents’ life-chances. For the purpose of this research, he used both quantitative and qualitative methods. His research interests include social geography of deprivation, quantitative and qualitative methods of social research as well as modern social theory.
Ifigeneia Dimitrakou
Postdoctoral researcher in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Zurich. Ph.D. in Urban Planning Design & Policies (Politecnico di Milano), MSc. in Urbanism (TU Delft), and in Architecture (AUTH). Her doctoral thesis examined the socio-spatial production of housing vacancy in post-crisis Athens focusing on the practices and everyday experience of these processes in the dense neighbourhoods of the city. Her research interests involve housing and dwelling, housing precarity and dispossession, housing and urban policies. She has worked in teaching and research at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies Politecnico di Milano and as an architect-urban planner in Berlin.
Dimitris Balampanidis
Received his PhD in Urban Social Geography from Harokopio University of Athens, holds an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and a Diploma in Architecture from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH). His research focuses on immigrants’ housing pathways and entrepreneurial activities, ethnic residential segregation and transcultural coexistence, as well as housing policies, urban and regional planning. He has conducted several research projects at the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE), the Urban Environment Laboratory (National Technical University of Athens), the research department UMR Géographies-Cités (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, CNRS) and the École Française d’Athènes (EfA)..
Nikolina Myofa
She holds a PhD in Urban and Social Geography from Harokopio University. Her research thesis concerns two particular neighbourhoods of Athens with social housing complexes, Dourgouti and Tavros. Her research interests focus on issues of housing, residential segregation and housing policies, the study of socio-spatial developments in urban space as well as thematic cartography.
Iris Polyzou
PhD in urban sociology, Researcher at the French School of Athens, Section of Modern and Contemporary Studies. Her doctoral thesis, under joint international supervision by the School of Architecture NTUA and the Department of Geography, University of Poitiers, focused on the sociospatial settlement of migrants through the case study of the Chinese entrepreneurs in Metaxourgio area in Athens. Her current research investigates the geography of ethnic businesses in central Athens and Nicosia, Cyprus. She participates in research projects studying social transformations and commercial centralities in the city.
Dimitra Siatitsa
Post-doctoral researcher (Department of Sociology, University of Crete, IKY Scholarship) on youth housing conditions in Greece. Holds a PhD from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning (NTUA), a master’s degree on Architecture and Urban Culture (FPC/UPC) and a diploma on Architecture (NTUA). Her work focuses on urban geography and housing, housing inequalities, public housing policies, alternative initiatives and social movements, with a special focus on Southern Europe. She has collaborated in European and greek research programmes and has worked in the field of social welfare at the Ministry of Labour. She is a member of research networks and groups.
Stavros Nikoforos Spyrellis
Researcher at the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE) and associate at the Géographie-cités laboratory (CNRS). He has worked as assistant, teaching and research, in French and Greek Universities. Graduate of the Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, with postgraduate studies at the Université Paris I. His doctoral thesis, entitled Social Division of the Athenian Metropolitan Area, Economic Factors and Educational Issues, was defended in November 2013 (Université Paris VII). His research focuses on the spatial analysis and the mapping of social, economic and educational segregation, particularly in the metropolitan area of Athens.
Research collaborators
Stavros Aronis
Postgraduate student in Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. He holds a degree of Social Anthropology from the Panteion University. His research interests focus on power, resistance, social inequalities and migrancy. He has completed his internship as a research assistant in the research programme “Inclusive Cities: Infrastructures of Social
Integration and Refugee Settlement”, University of Crete.
Sophia Gryllaki
Postgraduate student of the interdisciplinary program of postgraduate studies in the field of Urban and Regional Planning of the National Technical University of Athens . She holds a degree from the department of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens (grad. 2020). Her research interests include the cultural representations and the transformations of the urban space as well as the ways in which the academic disciplines that focus on them are constructed.
Emmy Karimali
Holds a Diploma (MArch) of Architectural Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and an MSc in Human Geography from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) with a specialization on Urban Geography. Currently, she is a Ph.D. Candidate at the School of Architecture, Department of Urban and Regional Planning (NTUA). Her research focuses on urban warfare and post-conflict mega-scale urban transformation projects.
Katingo Kechrologou
Thanassis Kotlaz
Graduate of International Economics (University of Essex). Postgraduate student in Spatial Policies and Development (Harokopio). Holder of postgraduate degrees in European Studies (London Metropolitan University) and M.B.A. (PA.MAK.). He has worked for a number of years at the European Union Intellectual Property Office, and in recent years has been working on refugee accommodation and integration programs.
Aggeliki Kyparissi
Christina Tigka
Phd candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology in Panteion University, Athens and a scholar of the Greek National Scholarship Foundation (IKY). She has studied Social and Cultural Anthropology and Architecture in Athens, Edinburgh and Paris. She has worked as an architect in the UK. Her academic research interests focus on cultural diplomacy and European youth mobility programs.
Eleftheria Tsoulakou
After completing her studies in Sociology, she continued with the postgraduate program “Social Neuroscience, Social Pedagogy and Education” at UoA. The first research experience was gained in collaboration with the National Center for Social Research. Some of the participating research programs are “World internet project in Greece”, “National Network for Climate Change”
Dionisis Tzanetatos
He received his PhD in Urbanism from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (2019), his Master in Urbanism from the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens (2013), and his BA in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Patras (2002). His research interests lay in the sociological study of urban space transformations under the sustainable development paradigm, focusing on the issue of urban transport and its relation with social segregation. In line with the above, he studies the world political history of automobility and urban transportation means. The title of his PhD thesis is Sustainable Mobility in the Neoliberal City: The Case of the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City.
Dimitris Manolarakis
Graduated recently from the Social Anthropology department of Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences while simultaneously obtained a minor degree in Economics from The American College of Greece – Deree. His thesis was about the context in which the self-organised sports teams were created and spread around Greece, their characteristics and their revolutionary prospects. His research interest is expanded in the political dimensions of the production of scientific knowledge with an emphasis on the construction of gender and sex, as well as, through his more recent work in two organisations in the Netherlands, in the struggle for social and environmental justice.
Christos Chalvatzis
Under graduated student in “Management of Natural and Man-made Risks and Disasters” (MSc), Department of Geography, of Harokopio University of Athens. Bachelor degree of the Department of Primary Education of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens as a graduated Physiotherapist of the Technological Institute of Thessaloniki. He graduated from the Police Academy of the Hellenic Police where he has been working since 2007. He has attended training seminars on civil protection, disaster management and civil defense. His duties focus on the technical and administrative support of the Athens Airport Policing Directorate. Undergraduate student of the Department of Geography of Harokopio University.
Myrto Stenou
Architect (NTUA) and PhD Candidate at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens. A graduate of the interdisciplinary postgraduate program ‘Design-Space-Culture’ at NTUA as wellas an academic scholar of public and private institutions. With extensive experience as a teaching assistant in Architecture, her articles have been published in international academic journals and collective volumes. Lastly, she has worked for several years as an architect in Athens and Lausanne, Switzerland.