Maria Athanasiou received the MEng degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and the PhD degree from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece, in 2015 and 2023, respectively. Her PhD research focused on the development of interpretable machine learning models to support diabetes management, introducing, among others, the first interpretable risk prediction model for hospitalization due to diabetic ketoacidosis. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Biomedical Simulations and Imaging Laboratory, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NTUA, where her research focuses on multimodal and human-centered AI methodologies for healthcare, with particular emphasis on interpretability, fairness, robustness, generalizability, and trustworthy clinical decision support. Her work addresses challenges related to heterogeneous data integration, bias mitigation, explainable AI, and physiology-driven modeling for real-world clinical adoption. She has published over 30 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and conferences and serves as a Lecturer in the postgraduate courses “Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare” and “Research Methodology” of the NTUA MSc program “Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine.” She serves as a reviewer for international peer-reviewed scientific journals and conferences, including IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, Journal of Medical Internet Research, and the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Conference, and was a member of the Organizing Committee of the 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging. She has received the Best Student Paper Award at the 20th IEEE International Conference on BioInformatics and BioEngineering for her work on cardiovascular disease risk assessment in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. She is the Administrative Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, previously served as the inaugural Administrative Editor of the IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation, and currently serves as Chair of the IEEE Women in Engineering Greece Section Affinity Group. She is an IEEE Member and a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece.

Research Interests
Machine learning, deep learning, physiological systems modeling, multiscale modeling, control systems, explainable AI, bias mitigation, aptability and continual learning of AI systems, chronic disease management, intelligent clinical decision support systems