Executive Board
The Executive Board is comprised of respected professionals elected by the General Assembly from both public health and research institutes within the VAC4EU member network. Board members are (re)elected every four years. Their task is to steer and monitor the organisation, providing key strategic vision and a consolidated annual plan of activities. The Executive Board guides the Secretariat through tasks to achieve these goals. These activities, both internal and external, strive to promote visibility, public relation work, and identity. Overall, the Executive Board hones all their expertise to lead VAC4EU towards producing robust real-world evidence. Currently, the body includes a President, Vice President, Financial Officer, and five Administrators.
Miriam Sturkenboom
President & Co-Founder
Miriam is professor in Real World Evidence, and head of the department of Data Science and Biostatistics at the Julius Center in the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. She was professor in Observational Data Analysis at the department of Medical Informatics at Erasmus MC until 2017. She is past president of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology. Her research interests focus on knowledge discovery from data collected in routine health care to improve evidence on drug and vaccine safety in particular in vulnerable populations (children, pregnancy and elderly). She is co-founder and president of the Vaccine Monitoring Collaboration for Europe (VAC4EU), she coordinated 3 EU-FP7 funded studies (SOS, ARITMO, SAFEGUARD), 7 EMA funded studies, and the IMI funded ADVANCE and ConcePTION projects. She graduated 52 PhD students and has more than 450 peer reviewed papers in the area of pharmacovigilance, pharmacoepidemiology and medical informatics and an h-index of 97.
Rosa Gini
Vice President
As the Head of the Pharmacoepidemiology Unit at the ARS Toscana, Rosa has elaborate experience driving the success of VAC4EU. Rosa has largely contributed to the development and maintenance of tools during her time as Vice President of VAC4EU. Rosa was involved with the testing of infrastructure for conducting studies, as well as broader activities outside of studies such as the Journal Club and courses in the VAC4EU Academy. As the organisation matures, Rosa looks to leverage her expertise to further improve the way the scientific community generates evidence, in addition to focusing her energy on capacity building.
Patrick Mahy
Financial Officer & Co-Founder
As one of the co-founders of VAC4EU, Patrick worked as a Professor Emeritus of Semiology at the University College Léonard de Vinci in Belgium. After his Ph.D. thesis on cellular growth factors at UCLA and ULB and a post-doc in molecular biology at UTSA, Patrick has worked for different institutions in the US and in Europe. Back in Belgium, he obtained an MBA and started to work with several biotech industries. This is where, Patrick gained experience in management and finance. He has been involved with the creation of several different start-ups. He has brought pivotal knowledge on financial matters during his time as Financial Officer of VAC4EU. Patrick’s background demonstrates his qualities of management and collaboration within diverse networks, as evidenced by his strategic focus on quality management. This style of management focused on building and strengthening individual capacity, motivating people to rise to the challenge.
Eva Molero
Administrator
Eva is the founder and CEO of Teamit Institute, a research management organisation building strong public-private partnerships and providing transversal expertise for impactful health science. Eva has a background in law and communications and initially developed her career in the field of marketing and technology transfer. She then transitioned into European project management and coordination at Fundació IMIM (the Barcelona Municipal Health Research Institute). She was the founder and CEO of Synapse Research Management Partners and founded Teamit in 2020. Eva has a strong focus on public private partnerships, project management, governance, communication, business development and sustainability. She has participated in several initiatives to commercialize results from research projects, including the creation of research alliances. She often teaches courses in European Commission funding programmes and project management and acts as an advisor for public and private institutions in project design, evaluation and assessment.
Giampiero Mazzaglia
Administrator
As a medical doctor with post-graduate degrees in pharmacology, epidemiology, and microbiology, Giampiero holds a professorship in Public Health at the University of Milan-Bicocca. His extensive experience in regulatory sciences, pharmacovigilance, and pharmacoepidemiology complements his academic role, giving him a comprehensive understanding of public health challenges and the practicalities of applying real world data. Giampiero is contributing to the strategic vision and operational goals of VAC4EU by providing new insights and innovative strategies with a diverse background in his role of Administrator. His strategic focus on relations with external networks is aptly suited to his vast public health knowledge.
Debabrata Roy
Administrator
Debabrata is the Head of Epidemiology and Research at the Drug Safety Research Unit (DSRU) and an Honorary Associate Professor with the University of Portsmouth, School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. He has a pre-clinical research, drug discovery academic background having obtained his undergraduate degree in Pharmacology at University College London, post-graduate studies in Drug Discovery Skills (MSc, King’s College London) and Epidemiology (MSc, Imperial College London), and completed his PhD research training in Neuroendocrinology at Imperial College London. The Administrator role enables Debabrata to understand and contribute towards the functioning of the VAC4EU and facilitate effective collaboration between coordinating centres and data experts and access partners. Debabrata is currently spearheading the quality management within VAC4EU, alongside fellow Executive Board member, Patrick Mahy.
Naomi Boxall
Administrator
Naomi is a dynamic leader with a strong passion for improving patient health. As the General Manager at PHARMO in Utrecht, Netherlands, she oversees strategic and operational functions, ensuring the delivery of pharmacoepidemiology studies while maintaining compliance with GDPR, ISO and NEN certifications. Before joining PHARMO, Naomi was a Principal and Evidence Strategy Lead at IQVIA in Berlin, Germany. She played a pivotal role in developing projects such as DARWIN-EU and a global registry for rare genetic ophthalmic conditions. Naomi’s leadership and strategic vision have been instrumental in leveraging real-world data to create optimal client-centric solutions. Naomi’s career is marked by her ability to manage complexity with emotional intelligence, build strong relationships, and lead with integrity. As well as being an alumna of the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training, she holds a PhD in Veterinary Epidemiology and a Master’s in Veterinary Studies from Massey University, New Zealand.
Elisa Barbieri
Administrator
As a Post-Doc Fellow at the University of Padua, Italy, at the Division of Paediatric Infectious diseases, Elisa collaborated at different not-for-profit and for-profit Real World Evidence studies on the burden and treatment of numerous infectious diseases in the paediatric population. She has been working with an international multidisciplinary team constituted by infectious diseases physicians, paediatricians and biostatisticians, allowing her to increase her methodological skills and scientific knowledge and to develop her critical thinking abilities. Serving on the Executive Board in her capacity as Administrator focusing on building capacity provides Elisa with invaluable experience in leadership, strategic planning, and decision-making, which she believes to be crucial skills for career and personal development.