Vassilakou Nair-Tonia

Tonia Vassilakou is Professor of Public Health Nutrition in the Department of Public Health Policy, School of Public Health, University of West Attica.

She is a member of the Dean’s Office of the School of Public Health and a member of the National Nutrition Policy Committee.

She holds a Degree on Food Science and Technology from the Agricultural University of Athens and she PhD pursued at the Medical School of Athens. Her PhD concerned secular trends of lipids availability in Greece in relation to the generic consumption pattern. She has been working at the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics of Harokopio University (2000-2004) and at the National School of Public Health from 1988 until 2019, when the School was merged with the University of West Attica as the Department of Public Health Policy.

She is the Director of the MSc. Program in Public Health held by the Department of Public Health Policy and she has been teaching the modules Principles of Nutrition, Nutrition and NCDs, Nutrition and Physical Activity among children and adolescents and Public Health. She has been teaching as an invited lecturer in undergraduate and postgraduate courses organized by the Medical School of Thessaloniki, the Medical School of Athens, the Harokopio University and the Nursing School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She has been the supervisor of more than 80 master dissertations and she is a member of the advisory committee for a doctoral thesis.

She has been coordinating and participating in several research projects in the areas of her research interests, specifically nutritional knowledge and behavior of children and adolescents, childhood obesity, malnutrition among elderly persons, definition and health benefits of the mediterranean diet and nutrition surveillance, in collaboration with research institutes, universities and public health organization and bodies in Greece and Europe.

Over the last years, she has written 1 book, has contributed to 7 chapters of books and textbooks, has published more than 45 high impact original research scientific papers in national and international peer-reviewed journals and more than 65 abstracts in national and international scientific conferences with reviewers. She is the Guest Editor for the Special Issue on “Childhood Malnutrition” of the peer-reviewed Open Access Journal “Children” by MDPI.

She is a member of many Greek and international scientific societies.