Georgia C. Papaefthymiou, a graduate of Columbia University in the City of New York, is Professor of Physics at Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania, and visiting research scientist at the National Center for Scientific Research (NCSR) Demokritos, Athens, Greece. She is the recipient of the Marie Curie Chair of Excellence award from the European Union, the CAPES award from the Ministry of Education of Brazil and the Fulbright Scholar award from the Department of State of the United States. .