Dr. Ifigenia Giannopoulou PhD
Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Sport and Health, Centre for Lifelong Health, University of Brighton, UK
Dr. Giannopoulou comes from a diverse background of educational and research experiences, having studied and worked as an academic both in Europe and America. Fenia has a BSc in Exercise Science from the University of Athens, Greece; an MscEdu in Exercise Science from Northern Illinois University in America; and a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology/Science Education, from Syracuse University in New York State in America. She was previously been a Lecturer in Applied Physiology at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, and a Lecturer in Exercise Physiology/Sports Nutrition, at the University of Athens in Greece.
Fenia is a member of the equality and diversity committee in the School of Sports and Health Sciences and is a passionate advocate of equality and diversity issues in the student population and in the workplace.
Fenia teaches a variety of courses in exercise physiology, exercise and health, nutrition for health and sports, exercise testing and prescription for athletes and clinical populations both in the BSc and MSc educational level in Sport Science.
Fenia’s research interests lie in the area of clinical exercise physiology, health and nutrition. Her research is focused on the effects of exercise and diet on health and specifically on abdominal obesity and chronic low grade inflammation and on clinical populations such as obese individuals, type 2 diabetes patients and peri- and post-menopausal women.
More recently her research is focused on mental health. Fenia has been investigating the effects of different exercise modes such as interval exercise Vs continuous exercise on older women and mood; Primarily her focus lies in the investigation of the effects of lifestyle interventions through new innovative behavioral management techniques such as mindfulness and mindful eating on mood, eating behaviour and overall wellbeing in young adults, university students, mental illness patients and athletes. Her most recent work is focusing on the effects of chronic dieting, low energy availability (LEA) and relative energy deficiencty in sports (RED-S) in young adults and competitive and recreational athletes in a number of psycho-physiological parameters such as: mood disturbances, eating behaviour, metabolic and hormonal disfunctions, bone metabolism and energy regulation.
