2013 Dr Maria-Christina Georgiadou

Maria-Christina Georgiadou is a licensed mechanical engineer and a graduate of the University of Cambridge. She joined the Centre in October 2009 to research "a framework for future-proofing the energy performance of domestic buildings".

She is a member of Queens’ College.

Email: mcg36@cam.ac.uk

Christina graduated with a First Class degree (Hons. and 1st distinction) in Mechanical Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece in 2006. She then spent a couple of years working as a research assistant and consultant in a diverse range of projects regarding energy efficiency measures, passive design techniques, and the application of renewable energy technologies in buildings in Greece.

Her deep-rooted interests in the interplay between government-industry-academia on the delivery of sustainable urban communities drove her to Cambridge to read for the MPhil in Technology Policy at the Judge Business School in 2008. This course provided her with a deep understanding of the integration of technology, management and policy. For her MPhil dissertation, Christina investigated policy drivers for eco-neighbourhood planning in Greece and proposed a comprehensive strategy for their uptake both at national and local levels.

After graduating from the MPhil in 2009, she directly enrolled as a PhD student at the Centre for Sustainable Development. For her PhD, Christina seeks to develop criteria for ‘future-proofed’ design that will explicitly adopt lifecycle thinking and accommodate risks and uncertainties into the design of low-energy dwellings. Under a case study methodology, fieldwork is conducted in ‘best practice’ housing developments in England and Sweden. The insights from both the conceptual framework and the case study research are fed back into established environmental certification schemes, such as BREEAM or the Code for Sustainable Homes, in order to become more dynamic and future-oriented.

Christina has been awarded a studentship from the EPSRC Doctoral Training Account of the Department of Engineering, and a scholarship from a Greek Foundation.

Academic initiatives:

“Voice of Researchers” initiative – European Commission, Brussels, Belgium (2012-present)

Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2012.

Extracurricular activities:

Lead Project Manager at GreenBRIDGE Graduate Student Society (2009-2012).

  1. Organised the GreenBRIDGE Symposium 2012 on “Valuing Sustainability in the Built Environment”, June 2012, Cambridge.
  2. Organised the GreenBRIDGE Summer School 2011 on “Local Practices for a Global Society: Applying Sustainability in Universities”, July 2011, Cambridge.
  3. Organised interdisciplinary seminars and events at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) and the Centre for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL).

Hobbies: playing the piano, working out, reading, foreign travel, theatre, film.