Vassilia Hatzitaki is a professor in the Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece where she teaches biomechanics and motor control. After completing her studies in physical education, she moved to Canada where she continued her graduate studies and received her PhD in biomechanics and motor control from McGill University. She completed her post-doctoral training in the MRC funded Human Movement and Balance Unit of the University College of London in 2001. Since then, she has been a visiting professor in the “Sensory Motor Neuroscience Centre” of Birmingham University,  the “Cognition, Action and Sensorimotor Plasticity” INSERM institute of  University of Burgundy, the Centre of Research in Psychology and Neuroscience (CNRS),  Aix-Marseille Université-CNRS and the Centre of Human and Applied Physiological Sciences at King’s College of London.

Her research focuses on the processes by which visual, vestibular, proprioceptive and haptic signals are integrated in the human brain and transformed into meaningful motor output for controlling posture and balance during performance of motor activities. Can perception-action coupling be improved in old age and motor disorders? If this is possible, what is the most appropriate means of exercise for exploiting the coordination between multi-sensory input and motor output.

Prof. Hatzitaki’s research has received funding from several national (Hellenic General Secretary of Research and Technology, Ministry of Education) and international (European Union, The Royal Society, EUROSPINE) funding agents and has resulted in more than 77 scientific publications with more than a 1500 citations.

She is reviewer for the Romanian Council of Research and Technology, several peer-reviewed scientific journals and an associate editor for Frontier’s Sports and Active Living, section: Biomechanics and Motor Control and a reviewer editor for Frontier’s Human Neuroscience.