Prof. Aaron J. Ciechanover

Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion, Haifa, Israel

➤ Aaron Ciechanover (* October 1, 1947) is an Israeli biochemist, a winner of the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the procedure used by the cells during the protein degradation using ubiquitin. Born in Haifa in the Polish immigrant family, he studied at the Hadassah Medical School, to receive the PhD in biochemistry at the Israeli Technology Institute (Technion) in Haifa in 1981. He followed his studies in the postdoctoral program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, with Professor Harvey Lodish. Currently he works at Technion – Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute.

Professor Ciechanover is a member of the Israeli Academy of Sciences, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and international member of the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S. He’s been awarded with numerous prizes and honorary doctorates by top universities over the world.

Prof. Marie-Elizabeth Ducreux

Centre de recherches historiques, EHESS, France

➤ Prof. Ducreux (* August 12, 1950) is a French bohemicist, specialized mainly in the history of the Central Europe in the 17^th and 18^th century. Her PhD thesis, defended at the Paris University in 1982, studied the history of the Czech counter-reformation. Currently she’s the director of CNRS in Paris. In the 1990s, she took part in founding the French Institute of Research in Social Sciences (Centre français de recherche en sciences sociales, CEFRES) in Prague. Professor Marie-Elizabeth Ducreux keeps close links to the Czech academic society, for example, as the member of the CEFRES Advisory Board, or as the trainer of PhD students at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. In 2009, she was awarded the honorary doctorate at the Charles University in Prague. She’s been a member of numerous international societies and expert organizations.

Prof. Maria J. Esteban

CEREMADE, CNRS & Université Paris-Dauphine

➤ Maria J. Esteban (* April 6, 1956) is a French mathematician. After her studies at the Bilbao University, she got her PhD at Université Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie. Currently she’s the research director at CNRS in Paris.

Her research areas are nonlinear partial differential equations, Mathematical Physics and the study and application of variational methods in Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Chemistry. Professor Esteban was the head of the committee for Applied Mathematics of the European Mathematical Society (EMS), and currently she’s the president of the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM). She has received numerous honorary awards and prizes.

Prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer

President of Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft

➤ Having graduated in physics from Universität Stuttgart, Rolf-Dieter Heuer (* May 24, 1948) received his PhD at Universität Heidelberg, to continue working there as a member of the academic team. Throughout his career, he’s been involved in structure and use of large detection systems to study interactions between electrons and positrons. During 1984 and 1998, he assumed important positions in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva; then, until 2009, he was the head of research department at Universität Hamburg.

Professor Heuer served as a Director-General of CERN since 2009 until December 2015. He’s been awarded with many honorary doctorates and important awards, including the memorial medal of the Charles University.

Prof. Joseph Jankovic

Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas

➤ Joseph Jankovic, M.D. is Professor of Neurology, Distinguished Chair in Movement Disorders, and Founder and Director of the Parkinson's Disease Center and Movement Disorders Clinic (PDCMDC), Department of Neurology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. After completing his Neurology training at Columbia University, New York City, he joined the faculty of Baylor College of Medicine in 1977. Since that time he has led clinical and research team that focuses on etiology, pathophysiology, and experimental therapeutics of Parkinson’s disease and related neurodegenerative and movement disorders.

Under the direction of Dr. Jankovic the PDCMDC has been recognized as "Center of Excellence" by the Parkinson’s Foundation, the Huntington Disease Society of America, and the Tourette Association of America. Past president of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society and of the International Neurotoxin Association, Dr. Jankovic is the recipient of many awards including the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Movement Disorders Research Award, Dr. Jankovic has published over 1,200 original articles and over 50 books. He has been selected among “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds”.

Dr. Jankovic has served as the principal investigator in hundreds of clinical trials and is current or past member of many scientific and medical advisory boards, including the executive scientific advisory boards of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Dr. Jankovic has mentored numerous fellows and other trainees many of whom have become leaders in the field of neurology and movement disorders. For further information visit www.jankovic.org.

Prof. Hans-Georg Kräusslich

Universität Heidelberg

➤ Professor Krausslich (* February 11, 1958) studies infectious medicine and molecular virology, especially the HIV virus. Having obtained his PhD at the Munich University, he’s worked at Stony Brook University, New York, with Professor Eckard Wimmer. Then he founded his own laboratory, aimed at HIV biology, in the German Institute for Cancer Research in Heidelberg. Later on, he received a professorship at Heinrich-Pette-Institut in Hamburg. Currently he’s in charge of the virology department at the university clinic in Heidelberg.

Prof. Krausslich is a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. He’s got international reputation as a top specialist in biology of retroviruses, especially HIV. He’s also the visiting professor of the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University.

Prof. Peter Kuhn

The Scripps Research Institute

➤ Prof. Kuhn is a physicist involved in studies of tumor occurrence and growth. He studied at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität-Würzburg, and later at the University at Albany, New York, to receive his PhD in 1995. Then he worked at the Stanford University, at the faculty of medicine and particle physics. Since 2002, he’s been working in the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, in charge of the Scripps Physics Oncology Centre. His major scientific interest is the individualized molecular medicine in oncology.

Prof. Brigid Laffan

European University Institute, Florence

➤ Professor Brigid Laffan (* January 6, 1955) is a political scientist, a specialist in European integration. Having graduated from the University of Limerick, Ireland, she obtained her PhD at the Trinity College in Dublin in 1987. Later on, she became the founding director of the European Institute at the same university. Currently she’s the director and professor in the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, and director of the global governance program at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence.

She has been granted numerous awards, is a member of Royal Irish Academy of Sciences, and winner of the Ordre National du Mérite.

JUDr. Peter Tomka, PhD.

Judge and former President of the International Court of Justice, The Hague

➤ Dr. Peter Tomka (* June 1, 1956) has been a Judge of the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), since 2003. He served as its President from 2012‑2015, and as Vice‑President from 2009‑2012. He was born in Banská Bystrica and graduated from Charles University where he also received his PhD in 1985. Prior to his election to the ICJ he was a Member of the United Nations International Law Commission. He served as Legal Advisor and Director‑General of Slovakia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later as Ambassador Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He was Chairman of the Legal Committee of the UN General Assembly and chaired a number of other UN legal bodies.

He has been a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (since 1994), an Associate Member of the Institut de droit international (since 2011) and a Member of the Curatorium of the Hague Academy of International Law.

Prof. Timothy Snyder

➤ Prof. Timothy Snyder is an American historian, who focuses on modern history of Central Europe in his work, and a professor at Yale University. He is the author of several treatises about modern history of Central and Eastern Europe. Providing a vivid picture of the troubled history of the region, his books Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (2013) and Black Earth (2015) became phenomenal in 20th century historiography and international bestsellers. Especially valued is his On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, encouraging civic engagement in the face of the crisis of democracy. In his work, he focuses primarily on the Holocaust and the relationships between Russia and Europe. He has won numerous awards, such as the VIZE 97 Prize, the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought, or the the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding.

Prof. Keith Gull CBE, FRS

➤ Prof. Keith Gull CBE, FRS is a professor of Molecular Biology at Oxford University; since 2002, he has been the head of the Gull Lab at Sir William Dunn School of Pathology. He has been awarded many prizes and scholarships, such as Marjory Stephenson Prize, awarded by the Society for General Microbiology (1996). He reads lectures on tropical medicine to doctors and students at Oxford University, especially molecular microbiology of parasites that cause diseases such as malaria, African trypanosomiasis, and leishmaniasis. His main research focus is biochemistry and the ‘cell biology of microtubules’. His interests are now centred on trypanosomes – parasites causing sleep sickness, devastating especially the Sub-Saharan Africa. His laboratory is particularly interested in the structural and molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis of this disease.

Prof. Tim Clark

➤ Prof. Tim Clark graduated in chemistry from the University of Kent. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Queen’s University Belfast in 1973 for his work on the thermochemistry and solid phase properties of adamantane and diamantane derivatives. He served as the Technical Director of the Computer-Chemie-Centrum in Erlangen from its fundation in 1993 until 2016, when he moved to a purely research position. His research focuses on the development and application of methods of quantum mechanics in inorganic, organic and biological chemistry, electron transfer theory and simulations of organic and inorganic reaction mechanisms, including the study of the mechanism activation of G protein coupled receptors. He is the author of more than 450 articles in scientific journals and two books, has an h-index of 56 and is the founding editor of the Journal of Molecular Modeling. In 2009, he was awarded the Claus-Wilhelm von der Lieth Medal of the Molecular Graphics and Modeling Society.

Prof. Gary W. Marks

(former member)

University of North Carolina and Universiteit van Amsterdam

➤ Professor Gary Marks (* June 7, 1952) obtained his PhD at the Stanford University, California, in 1982. Later, he worked at the University of Virginia, and then at the University of North Carolina, where he became professor in 1994. Since 2004, he’s been head of the Multilevel Governance Department at Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Professor Marks is mostly involved in comparative political science, mainly aimed at the European Union. He’s been awarded with numerous prices, including Humboldt Prize for 2011.

Prof. Jozef Mathias Ritzen

(former member)

Maastricht University

➤ Jozef Marie Mathias „Jo“ Ritzen (* October 3, 1945) is a Dutch economist and politician. Having graduated in physics from Technische Hogeschool in Delft, he received his PhD at Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam, in 1970. Before entering politics, Professor Ritzen worked as a consultant in Eastern Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and at the University of California. In 1989, he became Minister of Education and Science, and later Minister of Health and Culture in the Dutch government. His school system reform is considered the ground for success of Dutch universities in the 21^st century. After leaving the government, he became the consultant to the World Bank President, and later its Vice-President. Until 2011, he was the rector of the Maastricht University. Now he’s Professor Emeritus at the latter, and consultant/member of important advisory boards of global institutions.