Katerina is Professor of Dryland Hydrology in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol, the co-lead of the Water Theme of the Cabot Institute for the Environment, and an Associate Researcher in the Earth Research Institute at University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). She received both her BSc in Geography and PhD in Hydrology of Arid Environments from King’s College London. She comes from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus which forms a big part of the inspiration and fascination with arid environments.

Her research focuses primarily on processes in dryland environments from a theoretical and applied perspective. This includes research on dryland hydro-climatology, Earth surface processes, and desertification dynamics. Her work tries to understand why and how dryland fluvial environments differ from their humid counterparts and the implications for climate resilience in dryland regions. She leads a multidisciplinary research programme focused on droughts and land degradation in East African drylands of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. This research has a strong international development focus and involves the creation of novel tools (including models and mobile phone apps) to aid rural communities in adapting to droughts and future climate change.

Katerina has been awarded research grants from many funders including the UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund, the Royal Society, the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and the EU Horizon 2020 program. In 2024 she was awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Trust Fellowship to research a project on Hydrological Signatures of Aridity.