“The community has decided, it has spoken. We begin.”
Those were the first words of Marina Neophytou, the first woman to be elected Rector of the University of Cyprus, shortly after the announcement of a result that took four rounds of vote redistribution to determine and ultimately overturned the picture that had emerged at the start of the count.
Neophytou did not initially lead the race.
In the first round, Ioannis Yapingtzakis received 121 votes, compared with 106 for Neophytou. Tatiana-Eleni Synodinou followed with 89 votes, Sofronis Clerides with 68 and Fofi Constantinidou with 44, while four blank ballots were recorded.
Yapingtzakis remained ahead in the second round with 128 votes, compared with 118 for Neophytou, 95 for Synodinou and 82 for Clerides.
The contest tightened further in the third round. Yapingtzakis received 145 votes, Neophytou 136 and Synodinou 133.
The result was reversed in the fourth and final round, when Neophytou secured 214 votes against Yapingtzakis’ 183, winning the rectorship.
Her election also ends a tradition spanning more than three decades, with a woman taking the helm of the University of Cyprus for the first time.
Women had a strong presence in the election overall, with three of the five candidates for rector being women.
Neophytou will take office on 16 December, succeeding Tasos Christofides, who is completing his second term.
Who is Marina Neophytou?
Neophytou is Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Cyprus and Professor of Environmental Engineering.
She studied Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where she also completed a PhD in Environmental Fluid Mechanics.
She joined the University of Cyprus in 2005 and has served as chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Neophytou has also worked as a visiting professor at ETH Zurich and as a visiting researcher at MIT and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
At the University of Cyprus, she was also involved in developing the undergraduate programme in Environmental Engineering.
The new rectorial team
Joining the first female rector of the University of Cyprus will be Georgia Panayiotou, from the Department of Psychology, as the new Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs.
Panayiotou stood unopposed and was elected with 267 votes.
Marios Dikaiakos, from the Department of Computer Science, was elected Vice-Rector for International Relations, Finance and Administration with 209 votes.
