Victoria Athanassopoulou was born in Athens. She obtained her Law Degree at the Faculty of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and her Ph.D. in Commercial and Maritime Law at the University of Hamburg. In her Thesis “Schiffsunternehmen und Schiffsüberlassungsverträge” (Mohr Siebeck Verlag, Tübingen, Max-Planck Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht, Studien zum ausländischen und internationalen Privatrecht, 151) she introduces a fundamental new approach to the concept of the ship as an enterprise. She is Assistant Professor at the University of the Aegean, Department of Trade, Shipping and Transport and she teaches Maritime Law, Chartering, Marine Insurance Law, Law of the Marine Environment and Sea Labor Law at an undergraduate as well as at a postgraduate level. She has attended several international conferences and she has published widely in the area of maritime and commercial law. She is a qualified lawyer admitted to the Piraeus Bar. Her experience includes both the commercial and the litigation aspects of her practice areas involving among others also arrest proceedings and all kinds of charter agreement. She has extensive experience in all aspects of P & I and Hull Insurance. She writes and speaks fluently English, German, French and Greek.