Assistant Professor
tsiakath@uniwa.gr
Dr. Thaleia Tsiaka is an elected faculty member (Assistant Professor) of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of West Attica (UNIWA). She has also served as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Food Science and Technology of UNIWA (2019-2023) and the Institute of Chemical Biology (ICB) of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) (2019-2023).
She holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry (2019) in the field of Analytical Chemistry from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her doctoral thesis, titled “Development and validation of LC-MS and NMR methods for the qualitative and quantitative determination of carotenoids in foods and byproducts,” was conducted at the ICB (NHRF) in collaboration with the Department of Food Science and Technology (UNIWA). She graduated from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Athens (2008) with a thesis titled “Fluorimetric determination of folic acid” and obtained a MSc degree (2012) in “Chemical Analysis-Quality Control” postgraduate program at the University of Athens, focusing in her master thesis on the “Development of a chemiluminescence method for the estimation of the peroxide value of edible oils”.
The main axes of her scientific work include the following scientific fields/activities:
(a) Food and bioanalysis sciences, with a focus on the development and validation of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) methodologies applied to untargeted and targeted analyses in (a) foods/food by-products for the assessment of their phytochemical profiles and the factors that affect them (different processing methods, storage conditions, etc.) and (b) biological fluids to study the impact of dietary factors on human gut microbiota and health.
(b) Processing, analysis, and interpretation of experimental data (post-data analysis) using specialized software/statistical tools (Minitab, Xcalibur, Analyst, OS Sciex, Metaboanalyst, MS-Dial, etc.).
(c) Optimization of “green” non-conventional extraction techniques (ultrasound-UAE, microwaves-MAE assited extraction) for the recovery of plant extracts using experimental design models (DOE). Use of “green” innovative solvents (natural deep eutectic solvents, NADES).
From 2020 to 2021, she worked as an academic fellow in the undergraduate laboratories of “Chemical Composition and Quality of Foods,” “Instrumental Foods Analysis,” and “Biochemistry.” In the academic year 2022-2023, she taught as teaching staff under the ESPA program the undergraduate courses “Management and Utilization of Food Industry By-Products” and “Research Methodology-Terminology.” Additionally, since 2022, she has been teaching in the Postgraduate Program “Food Innovation, Quality and Safety” of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the School of Food Sciences of the University of Western Attica (UNIWA). From 2013 until today, Dr. Tsiaka has participated in 8 nationally funded programs. In 2008, she completed her internship as an analyst at the Department of Alcoholic Beverages, Spirits, and Honey at the General State Chemistry.
She has published as an author or co-author 35 original scientific articles in high-impact international journals and chapters in scientific volumes, while the results of her research have been presented orally or in posters at more than 25 international scientific conferences.