Emese Panyik is an assistant professor in tourism at the Catholic University of Portugal, Braga Regional Centre, and member of Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy Research Unit (GOVCOPP) of the University of Aveiro, Portugal.

She holds a PhD in tourism management from the University of Aveiro, MA in tourism management from the University of Pécs, Hungary, and BSc in Geography and in Political Sciences from the University of Pécs, Hungary.

She has five years of teaching experience in tourism management, including tourism geography, international tourism markets, ICT in tourism and tourism distribution channels, and in trans-disciplinary areas, such as statistics, entrepreneurship and research methodologies. Her research interests include local governance and stakeholder relations in tourism, EU tourism policy and thematic tourism routes.

She participated in national and international research projects in the field of social analysis, in particular profiling target populations, and participated in various scientific conferences worldwide.

She has experience in organising international and national conferences and workshops. She co-edited two books in European tourism planning and management and published scientific papers in high-ranking international journals in the area of local tourism governance.