Voula Alexiadou

PCRI, Greece

Voula Alexiadou is founding member and member of the board of the Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute (Greece). She holds a diploma (MScEng) in mechanical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. She started to work scientifically with cetaceans in 1999. Since then, she participates to all the research activities of the Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute in Greek and Cypriot waters, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. She is in charge of the coordination, organisation and implementation of the research expeditions, data recordings, scientific protocols and the quality assurance of the Institute’s activities. Her main research interest concerns the study of sperm whale bioacoustics and particularly their communication sounds, while she is also responsible for the maintenance and updates of the database of cetacean sightings and strandings in the Greek Seas. She runs educational activities raising public awareness on the conservation of the marine environment and cetaceans. Voula Alexiadou has contributed to the establishment of seven large marine Natura2000 areas for cetaceans in Greece. She has authored or co-authored 13 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, one monography, and 14 papers in proceedings of conferences, workshops and technical reports. Within the framework of the close collaboration between OceanCare and the Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute since 2008, Voula Alexiadou has collaborated with OceanCare specialists on guidelines for the mitigation of oil and gas exploration impact on cetaceans and participated on the pioneering collaborative project «SAvE Whales».