On April 8th, Prof. Phoebe Koundouri recognized with the award for balancing professional and personal life, especially in recognition of working mothers from her university, the Athens University of Economics and Business, during the Women’s Forum of AUEB celebration as part of the #ProjectEqualityAUEB campaign. Her mother, Chrysi Koundouri, received the award on her behalf due her absence from the country. Below her speech:
” Dear ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to accept this honorary distinction on behalf of my daughter, Professor Phoebe Koundouri, who is currently in the United Kingdom. She is there to deliver two speeches on her globally recognized pioneering contribution to the Science of Sustainability. One speech at the Royal Society of London and one at the University of Cambridge, where she graduated from and taught.I would like to sincerely thank you for the great honor of awarding my Phoebe as a mother of three and as a scientist at the Athens University of Economics and Business. Through this award, the multiple roles of women are appreciated, and the need for the academic space to transform into a workspace with genuinely equal gender management is highlighted, so that talented women scientists are not alienated due to the complex ecosystem of racial inequality.I sincerely appreciate this necessary initiative, which my Phoebe supports and will continue to support with all her strength, primarily as the mother of three amazing girls, Chrysilia, Billie, and Athena”.