Yola Georgiadou graduated as a geodetic engineer at the Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She earned a doctorate in geodetic engineering, on rotation modelling of a deformable earth, at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. She then carried out several R&D projects in satellite positioning and crustal deformation networks, first as a post- doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and later as a Research Associate at the Department of Geodesy & Geomatics Engineering of the University of New Brunswick, Canada. Later on, she worked in Latin America on behalf of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Inter American Development Bank (IADB), while still based in Canada.

Yola is professor in geo-information for governance at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University Twente. She is past member of the Board of the GSDI Association (representing academia), of the Capacity Building Working Group of CODI-Geo, United Nations Economic Commission of Africa, and of the Executive Committee of the International Society of Digital Earth (ISDE). She is member of  the NCG sub-commission on SDI in the Netherlands, of the editorial board of the Journal Information Technology for Development (JITD), the International Journal of SDI Research (IJSDIR) and the International Journal of Digital Earth (IJDE). Her research is at the interface of geo-information technology, policy and global development. Her current studies include how people enact, organize, and institutionalize (or not) geo-information technology in various domains (water, environment, urban and land policy) and how infrastructure (the informational, social and material underpinning of human action) is built, maintained and breaks down. Her methods are qualitative. Her normative orientation is “working with the grain” of institutions and organizations in the global South.

She was collaborator in the research program Linking local action to international climate agreements in the tropical dry forests of Mexico as well as in Using spatial information infrastructure in urban governance networks. She is leader of the research programme Sensors, Empowerment, and Accountability in Tanzania (SEMA). The three programmes are funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research - Science for Global Development (NWO-Wotro).