Identifying as a Mediterranean islander, Danae (pronounced as than-eye) was born and raised on Corfu island, northwest of Greece and southeast in the Adriatic Sea. Did her bachelor’s studies on Lesvos island, northeast Aegean Sea. Continued her early twenties in Athens and Crete. Returned briefly to Corfu and attended a master’s program in Historical Demography at Ionian University.
In 2018, she started her journey abroad in Munich, Vienna and Dresden, attending the M.Sc. in Cartography, where she was awarded a full scholarship from the Erasmus Mundus joint master. During her master’s, she fell in love with Polar Geography and developed her passion into a master’s thesis, “Developing Arctic Cylinders to map changes in the sea-ice and vegetation”. She published part of her thesis in the “Regional Studies Regional Science” Journal.
Polar Geography continued to be her main interest. Conducting a fully-funded PhD at Durham University, from the DurhamArctic program, in the Department of Geography on the “Arctic Cartographic Uncertainties”, where she used creative methods in geography and engaged most of her academic and artistic passions into a creative and innovative thesis.
After lecturing at Teesside University, bachelor courses in Human Geography and Research Methodologies, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Vrije University of Amsterdam at the Institute for Environmental Studies, for two years. The project was part of “Perfect Storm”, which focused on the risk of cascading hazards of flooding after drought, with a focus on hydro-social feedback; her role included exploring storylines of drought-flood events via data visualisation and art-science.
She is now the Lead Technologist of the Creative Impact Lab in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Working as an active research collaborator, she contributes creative and methodological expertise to projects across the School and the wider University, experimenting with creative methods throughout the research process—from developing questions and funding proposals to public engagement, knowledge exchange and impact. Her work explores how complex geographical ideas, data and experiences can be materialised, visualised and communicated through cartography, storytelling, participatory practice and art–science collaboration. She is particularly interested in creating meaningful afterlives for research by transforming its findings into accessible, imaginative and lasting forms.
Last Updated CV:
CV Danai Kontou
Resume
DurhamArctic:
Durham Arctic Research Centre for Training and Interdisciplinary Collaboration (DurhamARCTIC) - Durham University
Cartography M.Sc.
Welcome to the Cartography M.Sc. programme (cartographymaster.eu)
