NEW YORK, NY, December 19, 2025 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Maria Vlachostergiou has been selected for inclusion in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

With an interdisciplinary background spanning Human-Computer Interaction, Design Research, and Architectural Design—and driven by an anti-disciplinary mindset—Ms. Maria Vlachostergiou has established herself as an expert in user experience. She is widely noted for her versatility and systematic approach to identifying, analyzing, and solving complex problems across industries.

Since early 2025, Ms. Vlachostergiou has been serving as Product Design Lead at Kaizen Gaming. In this role, she collaborates closely with stakeholders across product, engineering, research, and analytics to define and evolve Betano's strategic vision, with a primary focus on the gaming experience. She leads a multidisciplinary team of UX researchers, product designers, and visual designers, guiding them to identify risks and opportunities within the current experience, validate design assumptions through primary and secondary research, and build data-informed design frameworks. Her leadership emphasizes strategic design to deliver Minimum Valuable Products—not merely viable ones—that create meaningful impact for both the business and its customers. She further fosters team excellence by mentoring UX professionals while navigating complex business operations and organizational dynamics.

From early 2022 to late 2024, Ms. Vlachostergiou served as a senior management consultant at ZENDA (2022), advising Fortune 50 to Fortune 500 U.S. organizations on digital transformation and product excellence initiatives. In this capacity, she led strategic research and tactical design for both B2C and B2B products, driving complex client engagements, multidisciplinary teams, and senior stakeholder relationships. Her work spanned industries including banking, consumer services, pharmaceuticals, and education. She attributes her resilience to the breadth of her expertise and an optimistic, growth-oriented mindset that enables her to rapidly adapt to each project's unique challenges, regardless of industry or scale.

In 2021, Ms. Vlachostergiou further honed her UX expertise at Biomotivate (2021), supporting R&D for AI-powered medical dashboards and VR-based therapeutic tools for healthcare professionals treating substance use disorders. She contributed to concept development and prototyping, designing features that enabled clinical teams to visualize and integrate biometric and self-reported patient data, track recovery progress, and identify potential relapse risks.

Ms. Vlachostergiou began her career as an architectural designer at Vlachostergios & Associates in 2017, the architectural practice founded and led by her father, Georgios Vlachostergios, renowned for high-end residential projects in Greece and cultural pavilions across Germany, France, and Italy. Her background in architecture provided a deep, holistic approach to design, starting with the study of human interaction with space and objects before transitioning to technology and digital product design.

She holds a Master of Science in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, USA; a Master of Science in Research–Design–Culture and an Integrated Master's degree in Architectural Engineering, both from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. Throughout her career, she has received multiple distinctions, including graduating first in her class from the MSc program at the National Technical University of Athens, receiving the MSCD Research Grant (2021) for her research activities at Carnegie Mellon University, and the SOA Merit Scholarship (2019–2021) for her MSc studies at Carnegie Mellon University.

Her academic career includes research appointments at Carnegie Mellon University's CodeLab (2021) and the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (2020), where she conducted advanced research in inclusive design. Her work focused on developing accessible orthotics for patients with physical trauma and empowering technologies for individuals with sensorimotor disabilities, leveraging augmented reality, physical computing, programmable materials, and digital fabrication. Some of these projects were presented at leading international venues, including the Augmented Humans Conference (2022), the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2021), and the TEDxCMU Catalyst Innovation Expo (2021).

Additionally, Ms. Vlachostergiou served as a design researcher at the National Technical University of Athens (2019), where she designed sensorimotor experiments examining the interplay between vision and haptics in embodied spatial perception. Her research contributed innovative design directions for assistive technologies supporting individuals with visual impairments. She has also held teaching assistant roles at Carnegie Mellon University (2020) and the National Technical University of Athens (2017), teaching courses in UX/UI design for gaming, creative coding, and digital fabrication, while mentoring students across technical and creative disciplines. In 2024, she served as an invited reviewer at the New York Institute of Technology (2024), critiquing graduate student work in the ARCH 701C studio of the Master of Science program in Architecture, Health & Design, a program emphasizing health, wellness, and accessibility in architectural design.

Ms. Vlachostergiou attributes her continued growth to resilience and determination, guided by the belief that "the only way forward and upward is to stay uncomfortable—discomfort is a catalyst for growth." A principle she often shares with peers is: "Get out of your comfort zone. There is no room for fear and insecurities when pursuing a goal or a dream. The only way out is through."

Looking ahead, Ms. Vlachostergiou aspires to senior leadership roles in product design and user experience, aiming to shift the mindset of design professionals from tactical execution to strategic UX.

About Marquis Who's Who®:
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America®, Marquis Who's Who® has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Who's Who in America® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. The suite of Marquis® publications can be viewed at the official Marquis Who's Who® website, www.marquiswhoswho.com.

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