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EvoKE 2025 | Athens, Greece

6-7 November 2025

PLENARY SPEAKERS

The Evolution of Epistemic Insight and Socioscientific Issues in Science Education: A Scientific Literacy Perspective

Dana Zeidler

Professor in Science Education at the University of South Florida’s College of Education

The Socioscientific Issues (SSI) Framework has evolved over several decades having conceptual, theoretical and pedagogical impact in the field of science education, and related fields of science proper. This presentation is centered on the facilitation of epistemic insight through a moral inquiry of scientific problems embedded in the social and cultural fabric of our world. The aim is to present key seminal underpinnings of SSI, its genesis, empirical impact on research and practice, and facilitate discussion on how the SSI framework has been framed around past, present, and future trends that have impact and continue to advance scientific literacy.

Dana L. Zeidler, Ph.D. Distinguished University Professor in Science Education at the University of South Florida’s College of Education with strong research focus on socioscientific issues and its role in science education. 

Workshop: (Co)-designing Evolutionary Research, Education and Outreach for Societal Impact

Tania Jenkins

Evolutionary Biologist, Science Communicator, and Founder of Cosie

Tania is a science communicator and citizen science project designer based in Switzerland. She recently founded Cosie, which stands for co-creating science, impacting engagement. After her  PhD in evolutionary ecology and two postdocs, since 2016 she has worked in science communication and citizen science.  As a former evolutionary biology researcher, she strongly believes in researchers as communicators and in designing research for societal impact: she has made it her mission to support research for societal impact.

She is also one of the founders of EvoKE and serves on its Board and between 2018-2023 was Chair of the Euroscitizen COST Action to promote the public understanding of evolution in Europe. She currently coordinates SchoolFan, an Erasmus+ citizen science project to empower students to identify fake news related to climate change and CS-Connected: which aims to strengthen Citizen Science in Switzerland.  

Workshop: Creating Written Content — Crafting Evolution Stories and Getting Your Message Across

Rita Ponce

Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal and NOVA University and a researcher at ICNova

She is a science communicator with a research background in evolutionary biology. Currently, she is an Invited Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal and NOVA University and a researcher at ICNova (Portugal). Her work focuses mainly on searching for strategies to communicate evolution and to debunk fake news about science.

She graduated in Biology from the University of Lisbon and this was followed by a path in evolutionary biology research: she was a visiting student at the University of Rochester NY (1997-1999) and a visiting scholar at Harvard University (1999-2003), where she developed the research for her Ph.D. Back in Portugal, she received a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Lisbon and was a postdoctoral fellow at cE3c.

In parallel with research, her interests in communicating science to wider audiences led her into participating and organizing science communication activities and obtaining a Masters in Science Communication (NOVA University, Lisbon). Soon enough she discovered that writing about science is as exciting as doing science. She wrote about science and environment for the Lisbon news outlet O Corvo and was an intern at the science section of the daily Público. Currently, she teaches university courses on science communication, participates in an European project on the prevalence of fake news about climate change, and she is a freelance science writer and fact checker.

On Apes and Men: Misconceptions, Tactics, and Truths in Talking About Evolution to the Public

Spyros Sfenthourakis

Professor at the University of Cyprus and Founder of its Ecology and Biodiversity Lab

Spyros Sfenthourakis studied Biology at the University of Athens (Greece) and obtained his Ph.D. degree from the same institute in 1994. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Zoological Museum of the Univ. of Athens and the Museum of Natural History of Crete (Univ. of Crete). He worked as a Lecturer (2001) and Assistant Professor (2006) at the University of Patras (Greece), and joined UCY in 2012 as an Associate Professor and Professor (2018), where he established the Ecology and Biodiversity Lab (https://sfendour.wixsite.com/biodiversitylab). His research focuses on biodiversity and eco-evolutionary patterns, island biogeography, community ecology, isopod systematics and phylogeography, in addition to several other related fields. He has published >100 papers and has contributed >170 communications in scientific conferences. Dr Sfenthourakis has served as officer (President, Secretary, Board member) in several scientific societies, such as the International Biogeography Society, the European Ecological Federation, the Hellenic Zoological Society, and the Hellenic Ecological Society, and is a founder member and currently President of the Hellenic Evolutionary Society. He has a strong interest in science communication, with numerous public lectures and contributions via other media (podcasts, online courses, etc.), and has translated >20 popular science books and textbooks, especially on evolution and ecology. He has also published two popular science books of his own on evolution.

Evolution Education in Science Centres and Museums

Maria João Fonseca

Head of Communication of the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto & Director of the Hall of Biodiversity – Ciência Viva Center

With a background in animal biology and biology teaching and a PhD in science education and communication, Maria João is Head of Communication at the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto and Director of the science center Hall of Biodiversity. She is in charge of general administration and of coordinating and promoting science communication and outreach activities. She has been involved in the design and evaluation of formal and informal educational activities, teacher training, and outreach initiatives for all sorts of audiences. Also, she is currently an Invited Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto and Vice-President of the Ecsite network. She is fortunate to be part of the team responsible for the reconstruction of the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto.

Among her interests are topics such as art and science in the promotion of scientific culture and wellbeing, science education in informal environments, especially museums and science centers, active learning methodologies and evaluation of the impact of educational experiences.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Charis Antonatou

Eleni Bechraki

Apostolia Galani

Myrto Koutra-Iliopoulou

Evangelia Mavrikaki

Maria Ntertili

Nausica Kapsala

Xana Sá Pinto

Asimakis Talamagas

Thanasis Polyzos

Thodoris Kartsiotis

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

PRESIDENT

Eleftherios Zouros, Emeritus Professor, Department of Biology, University of Crete Members


MEMBERS

George Ampatzides, Assistant Professor, School of Primary Education, University of Thessaly

Charis Antonatou, Biology Teacher, PhDc Department of Pedagogy and Primary Education, NKUA

Kyriacos Athanasiou, Emeritus Professor, Department of Preschool Education, NKUA, Athens, Greece

Bento Cavadas, Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Science, Santarém Polytechnic University, Portugal

Angelica Crottini, Professor at the Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Biologia, Firenze, Italia

Rana Dajani, Professor at The Hashemite University, Jordan

Joelyn de Lima, Pedagogical advisor at EPFL (The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), Switzerland

Szymon Drobniak, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland  & University of New South Wales, Australia

Marida Ergazaki, Professor, Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education, University of Patras

Apostolia Galani, Professor, Department of Pedagogy and Primary Education, NKUA

Martha Georgiou, Teaching & Research Fellow, Department of Biology, NKUA

Alex Jeffries, Milner Centre for Evolution, Department of Life Sciences, University of Bath, UK

Tania Jenkins, Cosie and University of Geneva, Switzerland

Kostas Korfiatis, Department of Education, University of Cyprus, Cyprus

Nausica Kapsala, Dr, postdoc student, Department of Pedagogy and Primary Education, NKUA

Myrto Koutra-Iliopoulou, PhD Cand., Department of Pedagogy and Primary Education, NKUA

Evangelia Mavrikaki, Professor, Department of Pedagogy and Primary Education, NKUA

Athanasios Mogias, Assistant Professor, Department of Elementary Education, Democritus University of Thrace

Thomas Mpampalis, Professor,  Department of Pedagogy and Primary Education, NKUA

Panagiotis Pafilis, Professor, Department of Biology, NKUA

Popi Papadopoulou, Emeritus Professor, Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Western Macedonia

Aristeidis Parmakelis, Professor, Department of Biology, NKUA

Patrícia Pessoa, Researcher at CIDTFF, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Xana Sá-Pinto, Assistant Researcher at CIDTFF, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Lucia Prinou, PhD Biologist, Greece

Rita Ponce, Invited Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal & NOVA University, and researcher at ICNova, Portugal

Nikos Poulakakis, Professor, Department of Biology, University of Crete, Director of the Natural History Museum of Crete

Dimitris Schizas, Assistant Professor, School of Primary Education, University of Thessaly

Spyros Sfenthourakis, Professor, Department of Biological Studies, University of Cyprus, President of the Hellenic Evolutionary Society

Constantine Skordoulis, Professor, Department of Pedagogy and Primary Education, NKUA

Ioanna Soufleri, Dr., Journalist, Chief Editor of “To Vima Science”

Bruno Sousa, Professor at Albufeira Poente School Cluster, Portugal

Panagiotis Stasinakis, Dr., Biology Teacher, Ampelokipoi Laboratory Centre for Natural Sciences (EKFE) Athens

Gregor Torkar, Full Prof, Biology Education, University of Ljubljana Faculty of Education, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Ioannis Trougakos, Professor, Department of Biology, NKUA

Efstratios Valakos, Professor, Director of the Zoology Museum, Department of Biology, NKUA

Lucía Vázquez-Ben, Assistant Professor at the Department of Pedagogy & Didactics, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of A Coruña, Spain

SPONSORS AND PARTNERS