Phoebe Koundouri is Professor in Economics and Director of ReSEES Laboratory at the School of Economics of the Athens University of Economics and Business, part-time Research Professor at the Department of Technology, Management and Economics of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), and Director of the Sustainable Development Research Unit at ATHENA Information Technology Research Center. She holds a MPhil and a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and has held academic positions at the University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Reading, and London School of Economics. She is recognized as a pioneer in innovative, human-centric, interdisciplinary systems for the sustainable interaction between nature, society, and the economy. She has published 15 books and more than 500 scientific papers, co-edited a number of prestigious academic journals, organized numerous international scientific conferences, supervised more than 30 PhD students, and gave keynote speeches and public lectures across the world.

In 2019, she was elected President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) and she is now chairing the World Council of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists Associations (WCERE). She is the director of the Alliance of Excellence for Research and Innovation on AE4RIA, linking the research and innovation work of 5 research centers, 5 innovations accelerators and numerous science-policy networks, with more than 200 researchers and 100 large interdisciplinary competitively funded projects involved. She is chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Global Climate Hub and co-chair of SDSN Europe, with 2000 universities involved. She is elected member of Academia Europea, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the World Academy of Art and Science, and member of the InterAcademy Partnership Board. She is commissioner for the Lancet Commission on COVID-19 Recovery and invited member of the Program on Fraternal Economy of Integral and Sustainable Development of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In 2022, she received the prestigious European Research Council Synergy Grant and in 2023, she was awarded the Academy of Athens Excellence in Science Award, awarded every four years. She is member of the Nominating Committee for the Prize in Economics Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.