Eleni Antoniou, 31, the woman who was the inspiration behind Greece’s first Barbie doll has been accused of having falsely claimed that she has won awards for her work at NASA and for having created artificial organs for transplants and working as CEO at Transports Without Donors.
The national media cited her as a “Greek scientist of global calibre” and accolades included her having being named in Forbes magazine as 30 Under 30, for having being voted 2013 Woman of the Year at the FDM Everywoman in Technology Awards, as well as the NASA-ESA Outstanding Researcher Award in 2012.
Mattel’s website stated that Antoniou had joined NASA in 2012.
READ MORE: Mattel creates Barbie Doll in Eleni Antoniadou’s honour
Costas Bouyioukos, assistant professor of Bioinformatics at Paris Diderot University in France, created a post on Facebook that went viral where he stated that Antoniou’s only contact with NASA was an eight-week educational programme with the space agency’s Frontier Development Lab. “She is not even fit to be called a scientist by most people.”
Greek Hoaxes also debunked claims that she had worked with the team that built the first trachea implant successfully used on a patient at the University College of London.
The NASA-ESA Outstanding Researcher Award doesn’t appear to exist, however a NASA spokesperson could not rule out the possibility that she had worked with the agency though she was not an employee there.
