GREECE TO UNITED STATES
Daring Career Changer

A classical archaeologist by training, Dr. Angeliki Kosmopoulou (Fulbright Student, 1990–1991) is currently a leading figure in Greece’s marine protection scene. As the Executive Director of the A.C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation, a family foundation based in Athens, she coordinates extensive clean-ups of accessible and inaccessible shores, largely supported by the “Typhoon”, the foundation’s 72-meter-long vessel dedicated to marine-litter removal. She also designs awareness-raising environmental campaigns and educational programs, advocates for the need to actively protect our seas, starting with our own daily habits, and coordinates the national program to ban single-use plastics—a joint initiative of the foundation and the Ministry of the Environment and Energy.

As a Fulbright Student to the U.S., Dr. Kosmopoulou studied Classical Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College, where she earned her Ph.D. After her return to Greece, she spent a few years as a professional archaeologist—teaching, excavating, and publishing—and continued her studies towards an MBA. A daring career-changer, with a professional background that also includes cultural management and communications, she traces her desire to keep learning and exploring back to the Fulbright program. Thirty years later, she thinks back on this as a truly formative experience, professionally and personally. Knowledge that shall never wear away, an open and empathetic outlook, and the belief in one’s infinite possibilities for growth are some of the attributes she credits to her Fulbright experience. The same holds true for her husband, Kostis Sfyrikidis, who joined her as a dependent on her Fulbright placement and shared the immersion into a new world; he still refers to that time as a “year-long honeymoon.”