Dr. Dimitrios Skempes is Assistant Professor at the Department of Physiotherapy of the University of Thessaly. His research interests focus on health and disability policy, including especially the organization and evaluation of rehabilitation programs and services for people with neurological and chronic diseases.

He holds a BSc in Physiotherapy (2006) and a master’s degree (2009) in “Public Health and Health Care Management” (Department of Medicine, University of Crete) and specialized as an Erasmus mobility scholar in “Health Services Research” at University College London (2008). He received his PhD in “Health Sciences” from the University of Lucerne, Switzerland (2019) as a Marie-Sklodowska Curie fellow of the European Commission.

He conducted postdoctoral research at the International Centre for Evidence in Disability, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK (2022-2024). Between 2019-2021 was a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Paraplegic Research and visiting Lecturer at the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine of the University of Lucerne.

He worked for the World Health Organization as Technical Consultant where he was stationed in Geneva working on the WHO’s Rehabilitation in Health Systems guidelines– primarily dealing with approaches for the assessment of scientific evidence in disability policy and managing operational aspects of the project. In addition, he was involved in the initial stages of the development of the WHO Global Disability Action Plan 2014-2021 and its monitoring indicators. In his research has examined health and disability rehabilitation from a human rights perspective with the aim to inform States’ human rights reporting to the United Nations and served as a Scientific Assistant to the Vice Chair of United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2014. A part of his published research work has been spent on issues relating to rehabilitation – advancing the conceptual understanding of rehabilitation services and classifying rehabilitation services and programs for international standardization in his capacity as a member of the Taskforce on Strengthening Medical Rehabilitation of the International Society of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. 

In the context of lifelong learning, he has attended numerous postgraduate courses and advanced seminars in health policy and systems research. He has published more than 30 peer reviewed scientific articles and abstracts in international journals with over 520 citations and 12 h-index. He has participated as investigator and research team member in projects that have been supported and/or funded by the European Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Paraplegic Research, the EU COST program etc. He is a reviewer in international scientific journals and a certified evaluator of training programs of the World Confederation of Physiotherapy. He is a member of the International Long Term Policy Network hosted by the London School of Economics.