Position: Postdoctoral Researcher at the Laboratory of Marketing and Technology of Fishery Products and Food

School/Department/Research Body: Visiting Lecturer from the Department of Agriculture, Ichthyology and Aquatic Environment, University of Thessaly

Scientific Field: Food Microbiology

Dr. Dimitrios A. Anagnostopoulos works in the Department of Agriculture, Ichthyology & Aquatic Environment (DAIAE) at the University of Thessaly. He conducts research in Food Microbiology with a focus on monitoring food fermentation and spoilage. He is currently studying the preservation status and the microbiological profile of a variety of foods (processed, minimally processed, raw) under different storage conditions.

Rank/Position: Professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and Board Member of the International Commission on Microbiological Standards for Foods (ICMSF)

Scientific Filed: Food Microbiology

Faculty/Department/Research Institution: Visiting Lecturer at the University of Pretoria

Dr Anelich holds a PhD in Microbiology. She has worked in academia in South Africa for 25 years, as Head of the Department of Biotechnology and Food Technology and as Associate Professor.
In 2006, she joined the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa, where she established a food safety body for the South African food industry — a first in the country.
In 2011, she launched her own international food safety consulting and training business. She is an Associate Professor at the Central University of Technology and was appointed Visiting Professor at the Wits Business School in July 2025. She was an Associate Associate Professor at Stellenbosch University from 2011 to 2014.

Dr Anelich is a member of the ICMSF, former chair of the Scientific Council of the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST), a fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology (IAFoST), former president of the South African Association for Food Science and Technology, former chair of the Food Hygiene Committee of the South African Bureau of Standards, currently an advisor to the South African Department of Health on food safety regulations, and a food hygiene expert for the African Union-IBAR.

Received the Award SAAFoST Chairperson in 2021 — the first woman to receive it. Dr Anelich is the owner and organizer of the annual Food Safety Summit™ in South Africa and co-founder of a groundbreaking new initiative, the Food Safety Leadership Initiative, based at Wits Business School.

She has authored or co-authored numerous publications and book chapters, and has given over 200 speeches nationally and internationally.

Rank/Position: Professor, University of Thessaly

Scientific Field: Fish Hygiene and Conservation

Faculty/Department/Research Institution: Department of Agriculture, Ichthyology and Aquatic Environment, University of Thessaly

Ioannis S. Boziaris is a Professor at the University of Thessaly, Director of the Laboratory of Marketing and Technology of Fishery Products and Foods, Director of the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Program of the University of Thessaly ‘Technology, Quality and Safety of Foods of Animal Origin’ as well as a member and national representative of the coordinating council of WEFTA (West European Fish Technologists Association).

In 2006, he took up the position of Assistant Professor at the Department of Aquaculture, Ichthyology and Aquatic Environment of the University of Thessaloniki and has been at the rank of Professor since 2019. In 2018, he was a visiting researcher for 6 months at the Seafood Research and Education Center of Oregon State University, USA, while he has also collaborated on research with other universities abroad such as the University of Turin (Italy), NTNU (Trondheim- Norway), University of Reading (UK), etc. as well as with various universities and research institutions in Asia such as the Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand).

His main research interests focus on the study of microbiological safety and quality-spoilage of fish using molecular and other omics techniques, as well as on the processing-preservation of fish.

He is actively involved in research programs, both Greek and international, as a partner and coordinator, and has several projects with the Greek Fisheries Industry. He has over 150 papers in international scientific journals and conferences, more than 2800 citations with h-index 30 in Scopus, (4190 citations with h-index 34 in Google Scholar) and has authored 10 chapters in collected volumes, is an editor in 2 foreign language collected volumes, an editor in 2 books translated from English to Greek, a member of the editorial board in 3 international scientific journals (Food Microbiology-Elsevier, Foods-MDPI and Journal of Aquatic Food Product Technology-Taylor & Francis), and a reviewer in over 35. He was ranked in the “World’s Top 2% Scientists List” for 2020, 2022 and 2023 as well as for his entire career in 2023 (field: Food Science-Microbiology) based on the research of Professor John Ioannidis, Stanford University, USA. Finally, he is an Evaluator of the ESYD (National Accreditation System) for Food Safety Management System Certification Bodies as well as a trainer of the EFET (Unified Food Control Body).

Rank/Position: Associate Professor, Agricultural University of Athens

Scientific Field: Food Microbiology & Emerging Food Processing Technologies

Faculty/Department/Research Institution: Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition, A.U.A.

Assoc. Prof. Nikos Chorianopoulos graduated from the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition of the Agricultural University of Athens in 2002. He then completed his PhD thesis in Food Microbiology at the General Department of the Agricultural University of Athens (2003-2007). He worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratories of Prof. G.-I. Nychas (EMBT, AUA) and Prof. I. Sofou (Center for Meat Safety and Quality Food Safety Cluster, Animal Sciences Dept, Colorado State University, USA). He worked for about twelve years (2011-2022) as a Researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Products Technology of the Hellenic Agricultural Organization-DIMITRA (formerly ETHIAGE).

In May 2022 he was elected Associate Professor at the Laboratory of Food Microbiology and Biotechnology of the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition of the Agricultural University of Athens in the field of ‘Food Microbiology & Emerging Food Processing Technologies’. He has worked in more than fifty (50) research projects in twelve (12) of them as Coordinator/Scientific Director. His research work focuses on microbiology and food safety, the use of natural antimicrobial agents and modern technologies in food preservation, probiotic foods, the fight against biofilms in the food industry, olive fermentation, the use of modern analytical methods in Food Microbiology, Blockchain technologies, IoT, etc.

He has published seventy-nine (79) scientific articles in SCI journals with Impact Factor – IF (ΣIF: 361.267, IF/publication: 4.573, h-index: 33, Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=8931822000, with 3809 citations), two (2) scientific articles in non-SCI journals (Google Scholar Citation Index database), four chapters in books (4), one hundred seventy-five (175) presentations at international and national conferences, forty-five (45) presentations at national conferences and seven (7) other publications. He serves as Associate Editor in 2 SCI journals.

Rank/Position: Assistant Professor, Uni.W.A.

Scientific Field: Technology and Quality Control of Meat

Faculty/Department/Research Institution: Department of Food Science and Technology, Uni.W.A.

Student Contact Hours: Monday: 9:00 –11:00 and Wednesday: 10:00 –12:00

Dafni Dimakopoulou-Papazoglou is an Agricultural Engineer specializing in Food Science and Technology, and has obtained her undergraduate (2011), postgraduate (2013) and doctoral (2019) degrees from the Food Science & Technology Sector of the Department of Agriculture, School of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. From July 2019 to December 2025, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Food Science & Technology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as well as at the University of Western Macedonia. In addition, she has taught at the University of Western Macedonia (2020-2022) and the International Hellenic University (2022-2024).

She has received four scholarships, two for postdoctoral research, one for her doctoral thesis and one for her postgraduate studies. Furthermore, he participated as a research member of the MAH (Microbiology And Hygiene Group) in the 6th “Spin your Thesis!-2015” campaign of the European Space Agency (ESA) at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, and received an Excellence Award from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

She has participated in eight research projects (two European and six nationally co-funded), as well as in cooperation programs with Greek food industries. Her research interests include the development and application of new technologies in the processing and preservation of animal-based foods, the assessment and improvement of food quality and safety, the development and application of innovative fat replacement systems, the design and development of new products, the detection of the origin and adulteration of animal-based foods using multispectral techniques and machine learning algorithms, as well as the determination of the shelf life of animal-based foods. Her published work includes 17 publications in international scientific journals, while she has participated in 28 international and Greek scientific conferences with oral and poster presentations.