Aggeliki Barberopoulou's research is broadly centered on natural hazards and risk, with the goal of understanding the response of the environment to naturaldisasters in order to better prepare for, respond to, and recover from them. She has provided technical assistance and support to experts’ panels, emergency management (for planning/preparedness) and has participated in community preparedness, training, exercises, evaluations/assessments, and post-disaster field surveys.

For more than ten years she worked extensively with emergency management officials and represented California as the numerical modeler of the Golden State at the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program and the Tsunami Steering Committee of California. In New Zealand she also served in the Tsunami Experts Panel (TEP) that provides support and advice to the Ministry of Civil Defense and Emergency Management (MCDEM) during a tsunami.

Barberopoulou holds a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics and a PhD in Geophysics also from the University of Washington.

In 2022-2023 she is a Tisch Faculty Fellow at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. Her work with disasters has led to her interest in building resilient communities summarized in the titleof her project: “Civic Engagement in Disaster Response: Empowering Residents”. Inspired by the response of communities to disasters (most times informal) she is interested in how community-based models in disaster response would be received in Greece. Based on previous studies, there is a weak involvement of Greeks into associations or other organizations which affect them, and generally mistrust others and the government.Is a neighborhood/community model which is designed by the residents themselves going to offer a better way for communities to respond to disasters?