Ioana IIie
PresidentThe president leads this organization with passion and vigor. For such a young organization, the focus of the term is on 1) establishing active communication channels between our members, our active volunteers and academy policymakers, and 2) reaching national awareness of the presence of this organisation.
As of February, she has been a TTAP in Chemistry of Biomolecular Systems at the University of Amsterdam. She focuses on the complex interplay between the structure and function of biological and bio-inspired systems, using computational modelling based on the underlying biochemistry and physics. She has a Physics background and an MBA, did her PhD in Computational Biophysics at the University of Twente and postdocs at the Universities of Darmstadt and Zurich. For two years she was the IT lead of the Life Science Zurich Young Scientist Network in Switzerland (LSZYSN). LSZYSN promotes excellence in life sciences in Switzerland, and its main mission is to reduce the existing gap between academic research and the life science industry. For three years she was a board member of the PhD Network of the University of Twente (P-NUT) for which she was also elected as President. The role of P-NUT is to inform, connect and represent (University and national level) PhD candidates from the University of Twente. Her time as a President was characterized by the professionalization and growth of a young organization. Additionally, it was marked by changes in the Dutch education system, which required a lot of negotiations with University officials to defend the rights of PhD candidates.
Stephan Hacker
SecretaryAs secretary, my most visible task for you will be summarizing the achievements of each year in the yearly statement, presented in the general assembly in April. Behind the scenes I furthermore will keep a record of the activities of the board and the organisation in general such that from day one of our organization we will have an archive enabling us to pass on everything we built together.
Stephan Hacker is an Assistant Professor at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry of Leiden University. He studied Life Science at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Afterward, he performed his PhD studies with Prof. Andreas Marx at the University of Konstanz, Germany, and his postdoctoral research with Prof. Benjamin Cravatt at Scripps Research in La Jolla, USA. After his postdoctoral research, he started his independent career as a group leader supported by a Liebig Fellowship at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. His group is focused on the identification of new target proteins for the antibiotics of the future. For this purpose, his group develops chemistries for novel covalent protein ligands targeting diverse amino acids as well as chemoproteomic technologies to study their target engagement with a resolution of the modified amino acid residue in proteome-wide studies.
Anouk Beniest
TreasurerThe treasurer should 1) establish a financial system for APNet that is simple, transparent and fair and 2) successfully obtain yearly funding from government institutions to organize activities and services for our members and 3) focus on the committee “Network growth & Sustainability” to attract new members and stimulate local networks of Assistant professors as well as linking with partner organizations.
Anouk Beniest has been an Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in Earth Sciences since March 2021. She finished her studies in Geology at Utrecht University, after which her moved to Paris (Sorbonne University) to pursue a PhD degree. Her first postdoctoral position (1,5 years) was at VU Amsterdam, after which she got my second postdoc position at GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany on an Alexander Von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship. She has been an active committee member advocating for Early Career Scientists (ECS) at various levels in academia. Her most important and influential position was within Europe’s largest Earth Sciences organization (EGU), where she attended board meetings and voiced the needs of ECS, representing about 9,000 ECS members. Together with two colleagues, she launched a more local, but quite effective initiative, bringing the Assistant Professors of the department together to discuss the needs and become active in the department. Her international experience has helped to develop her vision of what academia would and could look like. Together with Eveline Snelders, they started this initiative, APNet, to represent and include Assistant Professors in academic conversations at the national level.
Martin Skrodzki
IT LeadThe lead of IT provides sufficient support to the IT operations, such as maintaining safe and healthy backends to all ICT aspects of AP-Net.
Martin is an assistant professor at the Computer Graphics and Visualization group at TU Delft in the Netherlands. He’s an associate editor of the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts and an editor of the online journal w/k – Between Science & Art. Furthermore, he’s a member of the Solid Modeling Association and a member of the Delft Young Academy. His research interests include the use of illustrations in mathematics, visualization of high-dimensional data, discrete geometry processing as well as interactions between mathematics and arts.
Verena Seibel
Policy LeadThe policy lead engages with all political decisions that affect Assistant Professors in the Netherlands.
Verena Seibel is an Assistant Professor for Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at Utrecht University and a member of the European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations (ERCOMER). Previously, Verena held a position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen (2018-2021) and was a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz, Germany (2015-2018).
Verena is particularly interested in migrants’ perceptions and knowledge of their social rights. She is the PI of several research projects investigating how migrants navigate a welfare state, which is often foreign to them. She received, among others, the NWO Open Competition XS grant and was a GAK fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS).
Next to her academic work, Verena is passionate about pushing for inclusive policies within Dutch academia. Since 2024, Verena has been Vice-Chair of the Utrecht Young Academy. Before that, she was chair of the Diversity group of the Young Enthusiastic Social Science Researchers of the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences (YESS BSS), University of Groningen (2019-2021) and Head of the Equal Opportunities division of the Faculty of Humanities in Konstanz University (2016-2017).
Apostolos Liakopoulos
Membership Management LeadThe membership management lead is responsible for recruiting, engaging, and retaining members, while enhancing member experience and ensuring network growth.
Apostolos Liakopoulos is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Bacteriology at the Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, in the Netherlands. After receiving his PhD from Utrecht University in 2017, Apostolos worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University (2017–2021) and then as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Individual Global Fellow between Harvard Medical School (US) and the Institut Pasteur (France) (2021–2023). His research focuses on the diverse lifestyles that pathogenic bacteria adopt to evade antibiotic treatment during infections. His group explores both fundamental and applied aspects of these phenomena, with particular interest in how bacterial mobile genetic elements shape and exploit bacterial lifestyles detrimental to the host. Alongside his academic work, Apostolos is a member of the Educational Committee of the Utrecht University Graduate School of Life Sciences and has been selected as an early-career editorial board member of the scientific journal mBio. During his postdoc at Leiden University, he also served as a board member of the Institute of Biology Leiden PhD and Postdoc Association (IPPA).
Tessa Sinnige
Board Member focusing on Recognition and RewardsAdditional Board members support the activities of AP-Net in general.
Tessa Sinnige is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University. She is working on the molecular mechanisms of protein aggregation in a living organism.
Despoina Georgiou
Union LiaisonThe Union Liaison helps fostering professional relationships between Assistant Professors, APNet, and the Unions in the Netherlands.
Despoina is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pedagogical and Educational Sciences. She holds a Master’s degree in Research on Teaching and Learning from the Technical University of Munich, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the International Doctoral School REASON at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. Her doctoral research focused on exploring the “Research-practice gap in teacher education: Beliefs, evidence, and practice of university-based teacher educators.” Despoina’s research interests encompass the professional development and learning of university teachers, with a strong emphasis on the integration of innovative instructional practices, including technology. Since August 2023, Despoina has been appointed to coordinate Special Interest Group 4 on Higher Education at EARLI.
Board Member Alumni
Luisa Cortesi
Board Member AlumnusBoard member 2023 to 2024
Athina Vidaki
Board Member AlumnusVice President 2023 to 2024, Community Lead 2022 to 2023
Anne de Bruijn
Board Member AlumnusPR Lead 2023 to 2024
Kaitai Liang
Board Member AlumnusIT&PR Lead 2022 to 2023
Eveline Snelders
Board Member AlumnaTreasurer 2022 to 2023
Rifka Vlijm
Board Member AlumnaSecretary 2022 to 2023
The board would also like to thank Zeshun Shi for significant help setting up the APNet website.