DENYSE SNELDER
Dr Denyse Snelder is Senior Advisor at the Centre for International Cooperation Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. Dr Snelder obtained her PhD in physical geography at the University of Toronto, Canada, based on research directed at vegetative control of soil erosion in semi-arid Baringo District, Kenya. Between 1994 and 2012, she worked as associate professor at the Institute of Environmental Science at Leiden University and was the coordinator of the Cagayan Valley Programme on Environment and Development, Philippines.
Since 2009, she fills a position at the Centre for International Cooperation of VU Amsterdam working as senior advisor on research and capacity building projects implemented in Sub Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Dr Snelder has supervised numerous Master and PhD students and works on various preparatory doctoral and mentorship programs within the framework of above-mentioned projects. She further contributes to various courses and training in the field of food and water security, sustainable land and water management, research design and proposal writing, and curriculum review and development.
SABINA DI PRIMA
Sabina is a Sustainable Food Systems specialist at the Centre for International Cooperation at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The focus of her work is in the areas of food and nutrition security, sustainable land management and local farmer innovation. She designs, manage and implement capacity building and research projects for various donors. She has field experience in technical backstopping and oversight of rural development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia.
Sabina is also a certified university teacher (BKO). She has experience in teaching and coordination of courses at Bachelor and Master levels, supervision of students, training of short courses in the field of mentorship among others. She is the coordinator of the VU pre-doctoral programmes for students from China and Indonesia and since 2022 she is also the coordinator of the Bridging programme for all incoming VU International PhDs. Sabina is also a PhD student researching on the topic of Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture (NSA) in Lao PDR and Vietnam.
TEREZA KALOUSKOVA
Tereza Kalousková is the Head of the Office for Partnerships at Palacký University Olomouc with knowledge of non-EU mobilities (mainly the US and Latin America, Asia – South Korea, Japan, and China) with a deep professional understanding of all basic mobility programs (Erasmus+ 103 and Erasmus+ 107 included), educational and cooperation projects, higher education systems, PR, and event management (events for more than 300 people). Together with Sabina di Prima (VU) leads the work package 4.4. Aurora Capacity Development Support Programme (CDS) under Aurora – European Universities Alliance.
OLEKSANDR KHYZHNIAK
Oleksandr is a Governance for Society specialist at the Centre for International Cooperation at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The focus of his work covers several up-to-date areas such as: capacity buildings of HEIs, leadership and strategic planning; social and economic analysis in the field of innovation; theory and history of sociology, intercultural communication; migration; trust; collective memory; media literacy and others. He has practical experience in organizing and conducting empirical sociological (both quotative and qualitative methods) researches on socio-economic, political and legal progress of modern society, focusing on educational and social entrepreneurship issues.
He did his internships at Ariel University (Israel) for the PhD devoted to tolerance and at Warszawa University (Poland) for the post-doc devoted to collective actions. He is coordinator for Hospitality grants for PhD students and studies Central Asia and Caucasus regions. He has experience in lecturing in multicultural environment, presenting courses for BA, MA and PhD levels students on interdisciplinary issues, mentoring and supervising them.
SILVIA RUČINSKÁ
Assoc. Prof. Silvia Ručinská is the vice-rector of the university for international relations and mobility and the head of the Department of Public Policy and Theory of Public Administration at the Faculty of Public Administration UPJŠ. She published 40+ original scientific papers and publications, and she participated in 15 scientific or professional projects and research tasks at national and international level with focus on city development, public policy, modernization and digitalization of the public administration, output-oriented public management and CAF. She is the project manager of the Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R) initiative of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice (UPJŠ), and she is responsible for the university’s activities and projects regarding the Aurora European University Alliance.
PETER PRISTÁŠ
Assoc. Prof. Peter Pristáš is the head of the Institute of Biology and Ecology of the Faculty of Science UPJŠ. Within his research, he concentrates on the microbial and genetic ecology of the digestive tract of animals, and in cooperation with his colleagues; he obtained a number of priority results in the field of mechanisms of natural gene spread in this microbial ecosystem. He characterized the mobile gene elements mediating this transfer, especially from the point of view of the safety of genetically modified organisms and the spread of antibiotic resistance genes in populations of pathogenic bacteria. He is regularly supervising and mentoring the Bachelor, Master and PhD students of his institute.
FRANTIŠEK ŠIMON
Prof. František Šimon is the head of the Department of Classical Philology of the Faculty of Arts UPJŠ. As a researcher, he concentrates on the fields of medical terminology, history of medical terminology, ancient culture and literature, Latin language, methodology of Latin language teaching. His projects concentrate mainly on Latin language for students and the methodology of teaching Latin. As a teacher, he has rich experience in the field of mentoring students and young researchers. He has supervised numerous research projects and acted as a supervisor/mentor for Bachelor, Master and PhD students.
MÁRIA VASIĽOVÁ
Dr. Mária Vasiľová works at the International Relations Office of UPJŠ. She is the institutional Erasmus coordinator, and she is the contact person of the Visegrad Fund projects at the university. She has rich experience in project and mobility management. She is actively participating in the activities of the Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R) initiative of UPJŠ, and she acts as one of the contact persons regarding the university’s activities and projects within the Aurora European University Alliance.
