Dr Ioli Christopoulou is the co-founder and policy coordinator of the Green Tank, a non-profit think tank aimed at promoting policy solutions for a sustainable future. Ioli is collaborating with the FIDELIO team supporting our work in Greek Protected Areas.
Through her academic and professional career, Ioli has focused on issues of sustainability and environmental law, policy and governance, studying and partaking in the constantly evolving global, European and national environmental politics.
After graduating from Athens College, Ioli received a B.A. in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College (summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University focusing on public international law and organizations and international environmental policy. The tile of her dissertation is "Creating a Sustainable Europe: The Role of the European Union Structural Funds".
While a student she concluded volunteer and internship work at various non-governmental organizations in Greece and Brussels. From 2005 to 2018, Ioli joined WWF Greece, where she worked initially as a Policy Researcher and then for a period of 10 years as the organization’s Nature Policy Officer. She has been appointed as one of the two representatives of 12 NGOs in the national Nature Committee, which reports to the Minster of Environment and Energy, and currently serves as its alternate chair.
Ioli also has been teaching environmental courses at the College Year in Athens since 2008. She has served as a member of the Board of MEDASSET – The Mediterranean Association to Save the Sea Turtle and is the coordinator of the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Club of Greece.
