Research Teams

Dr. Athanasios (Thanos) A. Pallis is Associate Professor at the Department of Shipping, Trade and Transport, University of the Aegean, Greece, and co-director of PortEconomics. Holder of a Jean Monnet grant in European Port Policy (since 2003), he also acts as Visiting Professor at the Centre for International Trade and Transportation, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Since 2013 he is the Secretary General of MedCruise, the association representing more than 100 cruise ports in the Med and its adjoining seas.

Thanos was a Fulbright Scholar (2008-11) at the Centre for Energy, Marine Transportation & Public Policy (CEMTPP), Columbia University, New York, US. He served as General Secretary for Ports & Port Policy, at the Ministry of Development, Competitiveness and Shipping, Hellenic Republic, and as Member of the National Council for the Development of State assets (2011-12). His responsibilities included the representation of Greece at the European Ports Policy decision-making, and negotiations with the IMF/European Commission/ECB Troika on Greek port policy reform.

He has worked in shaping the port sector in four different continents; working for UNCTAD on port privatisation in Africa (Nigeria); for OECD on port development in South America (Chile); for the Association of American Port Authorities and Transport Canada in North America (US and Canada); for the Turkish government, defining a maritime strategy for 2023 in Asia; and as advisor of the European Commission, and the European Seaports Organisation (ESPO), national governments and European ports on port performance, benchmarks, and planning in Europe. Contract research also includes projects and consultancy studies examining the structures of the European port industry and other maritime topics financed, among others, by competition authorities in Europe and North America, port authorities, associations representing port and shipping interests, and several shipping and maritime related companies. In 2015 he completed a major OECD report on the state of cruise and cruise ports.

In 2008 he led research on port concessions that won the “Maritime Economics & Logistics Best Paper Award, 2008”, whereas he had won the “Best European Study 1999” Competition, organised by the European Community Studies Association (ECSA). His books examine the European Port Policy (published in English, Japanese, and Greek), the Common EU Maritime Transport Policy (published in English and Greek) and the Maritime Transport: The Greek Paradigm (in English). He has (co)authored over 150 peer reviewed papers, 9 books and 16 book chapters. Today, he is a regular keynote speaker/session chairman at professional and scientific conferences, with his work been cited more than 1.350 times (Η-index = 22) and acknowledged by the European Parliament and reviews of the most important studies in port economics and policy.

Elected Council member of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) the period 2008-14, he became Secretary of IAME in 2014. He co-chairs the Port Performance Research Network (PPRN) and was President of the Hellenic Association of Maritime Economists (ENOE) the period 2010-2014. He has been visiting professor at University of Antwerp; University of Old Dominion, Virginia US; Parthenope University of Naples; Athens University of Economics; and Hong-Kong Polytechnic University.

His research and teaching interests include port economics, management and policy; (maritime) transport policies and governance; the applications of microeconomic and industrial policies in transportation.

Thanos received his BSc (Economics) from Athens University of Economics, Greece (1992), his MA (Economics of European Integration) from Exeter University, UK (1993), and his Ph.D. from the School of Management, University of Bath, UK in 1998.