Prof. Dr. Milena Popova is a Head of Lab “Chemistry of Natural Products” at the Institute of Organic Chemistry with Centre of Phytochemistry – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and Chair of its Scientific Council. She is a co-author of 120+ papers, incl. review articles and book chapters, cited over 5 500 times. She has been a coordinator of scientific projects financed by Bulgarian Science Fund and participant in number of international and national projects.
For the last four consecutive years she is among the leading scientists in the Stanford University worldwide citation ranking. Milena is an Editorial Board member of the peer-reviewed journals BMC Chemistry, Plants, Frontiers in chemistry and Austin Journal of bioorganic and organic chemistry; she has been a guest editor of Molecules, Natural Product Communication and BMC Chemistry. In 2019, she joined the chair committee of International Conference on Natural Products Utilization: from Plants to Pharmacy Shelf (ICNPU).
Her research interests include chemical profiling and characterization of bee products (with special attention to propolis), medicinal plants and mushrooms; isolation and structural characterization of biologically active compounds; standardization and quality control of natural products.