Dr. Viktoriia Ivannikova

Dr Viktoriia Ivannikova is an Assistant Professor in Aviation Management and Programme Chair for the BSc in Aviation Management (with Pilot and Air Traffic Controller Studies) at Dublin City University (DCU) Business School, with almost 20 years of teaching and research experience in aviation management and aviation operations in Ireland and Ukraine. She is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE (SFHEA) in recognition of her sustained leadership and impact in higher education, and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS) in recognition of her professional contributions to the global aerospace community.

She is also an External Examiner for the MSc in Airport Planning and Management at Cranfield University and an Executive Committee member of the UTSG (University Transport Study Group, UK) and EACI (European Aviation Conference Institute, Switzerland).

Prior to joining DCU, she held senior academic and leadership positions at the National Aviation University of Ukraine, where she served as Associate Professor, Deputy Head of Shool, Programme Chair for the BSc and MSc in Air Transportation Management, and Director of Education in English. 

Dr Ivannikova holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Civil Engineering, specialising in Airport Design and Planning, from the National Aviation University of Ukraine, graduating with First Class honours in both degrees. In 2011, she was awarded a PhD in Air Transportation Systems by the National Aviation University of Ukraine. Her doctoral research focused on air cargo operations management.

Viktoriia’s current research interests primarily focus on design, planning, and management of airports, airport-cities as well as the role of digitalisation and innovation in shaping the future of aviation. She is the author and co-author of five aviation books; numerous peer-reviewed publications and regularly contributes to international aviation conferences as a speaker and panellist.

Dr Ivannikova serves on editorial boards of prestigious peer-reviewed academic journals Transport and Aviation, as well as regularly review for top-ranked journals including Journal of Air Transport Management, Transport, Aerospace, Advances in Mechanical Engineering, CEAS Aeronautical Journal, Mathematics and Aviation.

Dr Viktoriia Ivannikova serves as a Scientific Committee member and Chair of the “Logistics and Transportation” section of the annual TRANSBALTICA Conference, hosted by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (Lithuania). She also serves as a Scientific Committee member of the International Aviation Management Conference (IAMC), hosted by Emirates Aviation University (UAE).

From 2019 to 2022, she was a member of the Organising Committee of the annual IEEE International Conference on Advanced Trends in Information Theory in Kyiv, Ukraine. During the same period, Viktoriia
was a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and served as Secretary of the IEEE Ukraine Section Information Theory Society Chapter.

Since 2023, Dr Ivannikova has actively contributed to the European Air Transport University (UTA), an executive education initiative led by ENAC (École Nationale de l’Aviation Civile, France), one of Europe’s leading aviation universities, where she participates in the Future of Airports Roundtable, sharing her research on airport innovation and digital transformation with senior aviation leaders.

In 2014, she was selected as a Visiting Professor at Technological University Dublin under the prestigious Erasmus Mundus staff exchange programme, in recognition of her teaching excellence and contribution to academic collaboration across Europe.

That same year, she was awarded the ‘Big Silver Medal’ by the Construction Academy of Ukraine for the best published research paper in the category of “Airport Design and Planning”, acknowledging the impact and scholarly merit of her research in the field of aviation infrastructure.

Beyond teaching and research, Dr Ivannikova contributes extensively to academic leadership, curriculum development, quality assurance, accreditation and professional service. From 2023 to 2025, she served as a member of the DCU Business School Research Committee and as CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) Programme Lead at DCU Business School.

From 2019 to 2022, Dr Ivannikova served as a Board Member of the Teaching and Learning Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, contributing to the development of national academic standards for Ukrainian universities delivering undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in aviation management and transport engineering.

Her professional engagement with the aviation sector includes serving as Chair of the Judging Committee for the Irish Aviation Industry Awards since 2024 and as Chair of the Judging Committee for the UK Aviation Industry Awards since 2025.

Dr Ivannikova also has extensive international experience in higher education quality assurance and accreditation. Since 2023, she has served as an accreditation expert for aviation and transport programmes with the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance (NAQA), Ukraine. Since 2019, she has also served as an international accreditation expert for the Independent Agency for Accreditation and Rating (IAAR), Kazakhstan, contributing to the evaluation, quality assurance and continuous enhancement of aviation and transport higher education programmes in Kazakhstan.

Dr Ivannikova actively engaged in DCU’s equality, diversity, and inclusion initiatives, including successful completion of the Aurora Leadership Development Programme for Women in 2025.

Her research papers have been published in the prestigious peer-reviewed academic journals, e.g. Journal of Air Transport Management, Transport, Aviation, etc. She regularly presents at high-profile academic and industry conferences, including PTE 2026 (London); ATRS 2025 (Hong Kong); UTSG 2025 (Dublin); EAC 2025 (Warsaw); ICNS 2025 (Brussels), Transbaltica 2025 (Vilnius); TRA 2024 (Dublin), IAMC 2024 (Dubai), ATRS 2024 (Lisbon), EAC 2024 (Antwerp), Transbaltica 2024 (Vilnius); ATRS 2023 (Kobe), SOAR 2023 (Toulouse), EAC 2023 (Luxembourg), Transbaltica 2023 (Vilnius); EAC 2022 (Heilbronn), Transbaltica 2022 (Vilnius); INAIR-2021(Malta), etc.

Dr Ivannikova is also a frequent speaker and panellist at global aviation business conferences, such as: Aviation Security Forum 2024 (Dubai); Pilotless Summit 2024 (London); Drone Summit 2024 (Dublin), etc