Fani Sakellariadou is a geochemical oceanographer and professor at the Department of Maritime Studies, University of Piraeus, Greece. She received her Ph.D. in marine geochemistry from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College (London, UK). She holds an M.Phil in Oceanography from the School of Science of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She has a diploma (D.I.C.) in organic synthesis from Imperial College (London, UK). She has a degree in chemistry from the Department of Chemistry at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
She is elected President of Division VI of IUPAC for the period 2024-26 and Vice President for 2022-24. She served as a titular member (2018-20) and project coordinator of Division VI of IUPAC. She is Director of the Laboratory of Oceanography – Marine Geochemistry (since its establishment in 2002) and Director of the MSc “Sustainable Blue Economy” (since its establishment in 2018).
She is a guest researcher (2023-24) at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. She has been Chair of the Department of Maritime Studies (two two-year terms), a member of the Senate of the University of Piraeus for four years, and Director of the Erasmus+ Programme for five years. For 15 years, she has served as a national expert on air pollution issues for the European Union. She worked as a marine geochemistry expert at Hydrex, as a marine geochemist at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), and as a researcher at the School of Electrical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece.
Her current main research interests include the geochemistry of marine sediments (heavy metal speciation and organic matter analysis), seabed mining (deep sea and placer deposits) for critical metals and REE and its environmental impacts, microplastics pollution, pollutant studies in port sediments, environmental impacts of shipping, and the sustainable blue economy concept. She has published numerous papers and two books.
She is the mother of a girl and a boy