Olga Panagiotopoulou
Dr Olga Panagiotopoulou is a functional anatomist and biomechanist interested in the form-function relationships of anatomical tissues from basic sciences and translational perspectives.
She received her BA (Hons) from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, in Greece in 2003, her MSc on Human Osteology and Palaeopathology from the University of Bradford, UK in 2005 (funded by the Bakala Foundation) and her PhD from the University of York, UK in 2010 (funded by Marie Curie). Her PhD focused on the determinants of the symphyseal form in the non-human primate mandible using biomechanical and spatial requirements models during ontogeny. Straight after her PhD, Dr Panagiotopoulou joined the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London as a three year Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Postdoctoral Fellow, where she worked on comparative locomotor mechanics. In the last two years of her postdoctoral appointment, she received a European Marie Curie Reintegration Fellowship, during which she expanded further her work on feeding biomechanics under the mentorship of Professor Ross from the University of Chicago. In March 2013, Olga relocated to Australia to start her first academic appointment as a Lecturer in Anatomy at the School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Queensland. In February 2018, she relocated with her lab to Monash University, where she currently holds a Senior Lectureship in anatomy (40% Teaching-40% Research-20% Service). Dr Panagiotopoulou is the Head of the Moving Morphology & Functional Mechanics Laboratory at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and the Principal Convenor of the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology Honours Program. The major research focus of the lab is the design and optimization of fixation techniques for the better and faster healing of jaw fractures. Dr Panagiotopoulou and her team also run smaller projects on animal jaw mechanics from basic science and translational perspectives. Panagiotopoulou’ s lab actively collaborates with researchers from the USA, the UK, Japan and other Australian Universities and Research Institutes.
During her academic career, Dr Panagiotopoulou has published her work in prestigious Q1 scientific journals. She in annually invited to present her research on biomechanics at international and national conferences and meetings; her work has been featured in prestigious media outlets around the world (e.g. Washington Post; Discovery Channel; BBC; The Huffington Post; ABC Australia; SBS Australia and more) and she has received awards and nominations for awards. In 2014, she was a nominee for the Women in Technology Queensland Life Science Research Award. In 2015, she received a Teaching and Learning Excellence Award, from the School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Queensland. In 2017, she was awarded the Teaching and Learning Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning, from the Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland and in two consecutive years (2017-2018) she has been a nominee for the Henry Gray Distinguished Educator Award from the American Association of Anatomists. In 2019 she was also a nominee for the Eureka Prize for Outstanding Mentor of Young Researchers and in 2020 she was a finalist for the Greek International Women Award, Category of Science and Technology.
Since 2013, Olga has also served in national and international scientific committees with the highlight being in 2016, when she was the Chair of the Australian Society for Medical Research (ASMR) Queensland Health and Medical Research Awards Subcommittee. Dr Panagiotopoulou has been an elected member of the International Society of Vertebrate Morphology (ISVM) Executive Committee since 2016 and in 2019 led and won the bid for Australia to run the 13th International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology in Cairns in 2023. She is currently Associate Editor for the Royal Society Open Science Journal (Organismal and Evolutionary Biology), and Frontiers in Zoology and Invited Member of the Board of Reviewers with the Anatomical Record.
Abstracts this author is presenting: