Eirini Sampson

I work at the nexus of policy, research and implementation — because I've spent time on all three sides of it.

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I carry interdisciplinary expertise. Having first studied law, earning a First Class LLB at Queen Mary University of London, I followed the questions that mattered most into energy — earning my first Master's in Energy Strategy, Law and Economics at the University of Piraeus, and my second MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London, graduating salutatorian of both cohorts. My academic work has been recognised with prizes for its rigour — including the AECOM and Aether Awards at Imperial — and supported throughout by competitive scholarships: the University of Piraeus Scholarship for Outstanding Academic Excellence, and the Onassis Foundation Scholarship, Greece's most competitive merit-based postgraduate award.

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Today, my PhD at Imperial's Centre for Environmental Policy — funded by the Onassis Foundation and UKRI through the Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet DTP — examines the UK's heat transition: why decarbonising how we heat our homes is proving so expensive, so political and so exclusive, and what policy frameworks could change that. Alongside my research, I teach at Imperial, designing seminars where the next cohort of environmental policy professionals negotiate real-world heat policy for themselves.

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But I've never believed that policy should be studied only from the outside. At the European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy, I led research on community heating and citizen-led renovation, contributed to the Energy Communities Action Plan, and helped manage projects empowering energy communities across the European Union.

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The thread running through all of it is participation — the conviction that the energy transition will only succeed if the people living through it, especially the generation inheriting it, help design it. I work in the youth space as an advocate and a project manager, building the structures that make participation real: I lead the C40 Youth Hub's European Action Group; as Projects Lead of the Youth Climate Diplomacy Forum, I run capacity-building programmes for young people across all thirteen economies of South East Europe; I founded Sustainability for Students, a platform that grew to 100,000 readers today; and I've advised the World Federation of Engineering Organisations' young engineers group on youth engagement in climate policy. That message has travelled with me to COP28, the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum and the IEA — from Athens, to Brussels, to London.

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This work has been recognised by institutions I deeply respect: I served as a European Climate Pact Ambassador for the European Commission, was selected as a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum in London's Hub III, and in 2025 was named a Rising Leader by the Aspen Institute UK.