Funded Partner
UTH - University of Thessaly
University of Thessaly (Greece), with 37 Departments, and 8 schools is a university with its own identity and with a prominent position in our national educational system. University of Thessaly provides undergraduate and postgraduate programs and extra-curricular modules in specific research and business fields, for over 43000 students. The main mission of the University of Thessaly is the promotion of scientific knowledge through research and the contribution to the cultural and economic development of the local community and wider society. It is known for its excellent research performance and outstanding scientific achievements, in accordance with the international standards. The excellent equipped Laboratories of the different Departments and Research Units have a number of well-trained researchers to support them.
The Department of Ichthyology and Aquatic Environment (DIAE) at the University of Thessaly aims to educate the students and provide training in fisheries, aquaculture and in the sustainable exploitation and management of the aquatic ecosystem. Its research activities focus on aquafeed production, nutrition, physiology and genetics of aquatic organisms, the management of aquatic environment, socioeconomics, fisheries and aquaculture and conservation of marine and freshwater ecosystems. It aims to carry out basic and applied research on the development of technology transfer in the fisheries and aquaculture management field.
Personnel
Prof. Konstantinos (Kostas) Kormas
Team leader
Prof. Konstantinos (Kostas) Kormas received his Biology BSc (1994) and Marine Biology PhD (1998) from the National and Kapodistrian Unviersity of Athens, Greece. He has been a post-doctoral investigator at the Trondheim Biolgoical Station, Norway, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA, & the Advanced Institute for Science & Technology, Japan.
He joined the University of Thessaly, Greece, in 2005 as Assist. Prof. and is a full Professor of Aquatic Microbial Ecology since 2015. He teaches Microbiology, Aquatic Microbial Ecology and Applications of Aquatic Microorganisms and heads the international MSc program “Host-Microbe Interactions”. His group works on the diversity and ecological role of prokaryotes & unicellular eukaryotes in the aquatic environment, emphasizing on symbiotic microorganisms of aquatic animals, mostly with omics-based approaches.
He serves as editorial board member of BMC Biology, ISME Communications, Microbiology Spectrum, Microorganisms, PeerJ (Microbiology Section Editor), Reviews in Aquaculture, Discover Conservation, Fishes, Ocean Microbiology, PCI Microbiology (Recommender). He is a 2024 Fulbright Scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. He is a member of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies Council and the Greek Ambassador of the International Society of Microbial Ecology. He is one of the founding members of the Greek Society of MikroBioKosmos where he has served as President/Treasurer/Board Member. He is the author/co-author of 146 peer-reviewed papers. His published works have received >3750 citations (excluding self-citations) and his h-index is 36 (SCOPUS).
Other team members
Dr. Eleni Nikouli
Team member
Dr. Eleni Nikouli is an ichthyologist with a FELASA certificate (A–D), exploring the hidden world of microbes in marine fish species. With a master’s in Sustainable Management of Aquatic Environments and a PhD on fish gut microbiomes, she studies how environmental and host factors shape microbial communities—and how this knowledge can drive sustainable, safe, and nutritious food systems. Skilled in bioinformatics and downstream analysis of microbiome datasets, she has contributed to four Greek and European research projects, authored 18 peer-reviewed publications, and earned awards for her work at international conferences and workshops.