Dr. Maria K. Koukou is Assistant Professor at the Department of Agricultural Development, Agri-Food and Management of Natural Resources of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) in the field of industrial installations. She is Deputy Director (Director Professor Michail Gr. Vrachopoulos) of the research laboratory Energy and Environmental Research Laboratory (E2ReLab) of NKUA. She graduated from Chemical Engineering department, University of Patras in 1991 and she awarded with a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering in 1997 from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in the field of installations analysis and design.  Her research interests focus on the analysis and design of installations and processes with an emphasis on optimization and energy saving. In recent years, she has been working with issues of Renewable Energy Sources (RES - solar and geothermal energy) installations in combination with thermal energy storage technologies to cover heating, cooling and domestic hot water needs in buildings and other facilities. Since 1992, she has participated in more than twenty five European and Greek research projects in most of which she had a leading research and managerial role and in subjects as analysis and design of industrial facilities, energy saving, quality assurance, etc. Dr Koukou has published more than 100 scientific publications in international scientific journals and conferences. She is also author of two books on Renewable Energy Sources (one under editing) and 2 chapters in books related to installations design. She has taught courses in two Postgraduate Programmes (MSc) and she has been member of scientific and organization committees in international conferences and workshops. She is also a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE - https://www.ashrae.org/), European Technology and Innovation Platform on Renewable Heating & Cooling and other professional and scientific bodies.