Dr. Katerina Poustourli is an expert in the Disaster Risk Reduction, Crisis Management and Smart Cities fields. Currently, she serves as the Head of the Civil Resilience and Emergency Planning Department at the International Hellenic University where she is leading outward-looking building synergies and capacities initiatives at national, European and international levels. Over time she has contributed and contributes to relevant European and international standardisation technical committees, working groups and fora under different “hats”/roles (e.g. ELOT/TC 104, ISO/TC292, CEN/TC391, CEN CENELEC STAIR /BTWG 3 Standardization, Innovation and Research, among others).
She served at the European Commission in the Joint Research Center - Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC)-Technology Assessment Unit-ERNCIP (2014-2016) as a Scientific/Technical Officer and in the HOME Affairs Innovation & Security Research Unit (2017-2019) as a Policy/Project Officer, under SNE Contracts. The last six years acts as an evaluator of Horizon Cluster's 3 R&I Projects. She holds a Security Clearance-CONFIDENTIEL UE/EU CONFIDENTIAL, EU TOP SECRET (expires on 19-09-2029).
She contributed to several Horizon Cluster’s 3: Civil security for society R&I Projects as a Standardisation Expert, or Project Adviser and/or Liaison (e.g. STRATEGY, HSBooster.eu, HoloZcan, PANTHEON, etc.). She contributed to the drafting process of many relative standardisation deliverables, such as in a) CWAs: CWA 17147:2017; CWA 18009; CWA 18013; CWA 18017; CWA 18018. b) CEN TSs: (CEN/TS 18053-1:2024; CEN/TS 18053-2), and c) Review of standards (e.g. Crisis management ISO 22361:2022; ISO/TR 22351; ISO 22322; ISO 22324; ISO 22398, etc.).
She delivers public speeches while she is contributing with expert opinion in several workshops of the R&I Projects (e.g. PRECINCT, EU-HYBNET, PROACTIVE, NATO Use of Civil Standards Workshop, etc.) of the European Commission (e.g. DG CNECT, Cross-Domain Standardisation and Architecture for IoT and Edge Computing) and other bodies (e.g. RIMMA, CEN/CENELEC, IAEA podcasts, etc.).
She holds a PhD in Quality/Robust Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), an Integrated MSc and Dipl. in Production Engineering & Management from the Technical University of Crete (TUC), a Postgraduate Diploma in Innovation and Design Thinking (Emeritus MIT) and a MSc in Human Genetics (UTH).
During her research activities and professional career, she has gained experience in policy support in the area of disaster risk management at European and global levels. Her technical background is in industrial systems & engineering, standardisation/certification/accreditation (conformity assessment), testing laboratories, decision support systems, uncertainty assessment and forecasting. She gained valuable experience and communication skills during her service as ISO Management Standards Systems lead auditor, as an adjunct professor in HEIs and as an...
