Andreea Iorga is an Honours student in International Business Administration at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Alongside her studies, she holds the position of Communication Coordinator of the University Student Council, where she represents over 32,000 students and works to strengthen engagement, transparency, and communication between students and university governance.As the delegated representative of VU Amsterdam within the Aurora Student Council, Andreea contributes to cross-European student collaboration within the Aurora European university alliance. Her interests lie at the intersection of international cooperation, leadership, and student representation, with a focus on ensuring that student voices shape both local and European higher-education spaces.
Matthias Thoma is a third-year political science student at the Universität Innsbruck with practical experience in Austrian and international politics. He is committed to strengthening international university cooperation in order to foster sustainable exchange and mutual knowledge transfer within the Aurora alliance. His focus lies on building institutional bridges between research, teaching and student mobility to connect European universities more strategically and accelerate the uptake of innovation.
Matthias Grafenauer is studying International Business and Economics, as well as Law, at the Universität Innsbruck. During his Erasmus exchange in Bologna, he realised how important it is for students to gain new perspectives from other academic institutions and how enjoyable it is to meet other young people from all over Europe. Therefore, he wants to contribute to our academic network. He has been active in student representation as part of the student council at the University of Innsbruck for several years.
Anna Sóley Jónsdóttir is a 24-year-old Bachelor’s student in Art Theory with a minor in Political Science at the University of Iceland. At her home university, she serves as the International Officer of the Student Council (SHÍ), where she focuses mainly on advocacy and support for international students.
Simona Gibalová is fourth year General Medicine student at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice). As current President of the Aurora Student Council (ASC), she will leverage on her extensive experience as former Aurora Student Ambassador in the ASC. From collaboration on creating the Aurora Students’ Rights Charter to representing Aurora in the European Student Union, she will brings a unique perspective from an Aurora Associate Partner university to the ASC board for the first time.
Simona’s vision for this year involves deepening student collaboration on a local and European level, improving the Aurora Student Ambassador programme and bringing forward the needs of students from associate partner universities. She believes that the ASC is a unique opportunity for every student involved to gain new, outside-of-classroom knowledge, share good practices and gain growth on both personal and professional levels.
Jacqueline van Muijlwijk-Koezen is a distinguished academic and leader in the field of chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences. She currently serves as the Chief Education Officer at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where she has held various leadership roles since 2006. Jacqueline’s extensive experience includes positions such as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Science and Full Professor of Innovations in Human Health & Life Sciences. Her academic journey began with a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, focusing on the design and synthesis of antagonists for the human adenosine A3 receptor.Throughout her career, Jacqueline has been actively involved in educational innovation, receiving multiple awards for her contributions, including the Science Teaching Innovation Award. She has also played significant roles in various boards and committees, such as the Supervisory Board of the Theological University Utrecht and chairing the Executive Board of European Consortium ULLA. Her dedication to integrating education and research is evident in her numerous publications and successful grant applications.Jacqueline’s work style is characterized by her commitment to collaboration and leveraging networks to enhance educational and research outcomes. She emphasizes the importance of academia’s role in society, advocating for a reciprocal relationship where both the academic community and society at large recognize and utilize each other’s strengths. Jacqueline is dedicated to fostering partnerships that underscore the societal relevance of academic work while ensuring that the contributions of academia are clearly communicated and valued.
Gregor is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities and Professor of Corporate Communication at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He previously served as a member of the University Executive Board and was a professor of corporate communication at Copenhagen Business School. Before that, he was a professor and vice-dean at Singapore Management University. Beyond academia, Gregor has held key roles in the communications industry, including managing partner at Publicis—one of the world’s largest advertising agencies.
doc. JUDr. Michael Kohajda, Ph.D. graduated from the Palacký University Olomouc (UP) Faculty of Law (UP FL) with a Master’s degree in Law and Legal Science. He obtained his doctoral degree and received his habilitation in Financial Law at the Charles University Faculty of Law. He has taught at UP FL for almost twenty years. Since 2020, he has held the position of Vice-Dean – (first for Doctoral Studies, Qualification Procedures, and Finances, including investments; currently he is Vice-Dean for External Relations and Investments). He is a member of the UP FL Scholarly Board and several other boards at the law faculties in Olomouc and Prague.
His research and publication activities focus on financial law, especially on public budgets, taxation, banking, insurance, and capital markets. His main professional interest involves financial system rules and supervision. In recent years, he has also focused on the legal rules related to the issuance and handling of crypto assets. Since 2024 he has been the principal investigator of the Czech Science Foundation standard project Crypto Assets as a Threat to Sovereignty. As regards international cooperation, he has undertaken a number of international research and teaching stays in Europe, the USA, and Australia. In addition to his academic activities, he has a successful legal practice.
In order to contribute to the development of society, he has been involved in politics. Between 2014 and 2022, he was a member of the Šumperk City Council, where he focused on budget policy and investments. In 2021, thanks to preferential votes, he won a seat in the Parliament of the Czech Republic for the Olomouc Region. He serves, among others, as a member of the Budget Committee in the Parliament. He was also a member of the Chamber of Deputies’ special investigative commission on the tragic event that took place at the Charles University Faculty of Arts in December 2023.
Dr Morten Irgens is the Vice Dean of Innovation and Impact at Copenhagen Business School (CBS), an advisor to the senior management of Kristiania, and board member of CLAIRE (the Confederation of Laboratories of Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe), Adra (The Artificial Intelligence, Data and Robotics Association) and NORA (The Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Consortium), and sits on the Digital Advisory Board of Abelia, the Steering Board of National Defense Innovation Center, and Danish Universities’ Standing Committee on Innovation.
Dr Irgens has an MSc in Computer Science and PhD in Artificial Intelligence. He has served in a number of senior management positions in universities and university colleges in Norway, including three times as Vice-Rector and twice as Faculty Dean, where he has been responsible for establishing or acquiring a number of research labs, research centres, and research institutions. He has also been a CEO, CTO, and Research Scientist. He founded Actenum Corporation, a Canadian AI-based company with global sales, and has served on several boards in the technology and research sectors.
He is a co-founder of CLAIRE, Adra, NORA, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Center for Cyber and Information Technology, and has also been involved in establishing HousingLab (the Norwegian Center for Housing Market Economics), KAI (The Work Inclusion Competency Center).
The Vice-Rectorate for Science Policy and Interdisciplinary Projects coordinates research policy, the promotion and evaluation of research as well as scientific visibility and interdisciplinary research projects.
Professor of physics and Vice Rector for Research at the Università Federico II of Naples, Lorenzo Marrucci has co-authored almost 300 scientific articles and five patents on a variety of topics, ranging from complex materials to quantum photonics and structured light. He is known for his invention of the “q-plate”, a device that allows generating orbital angular momentum from polarization manipulations. Marrucci has coordinated several national and international research projects, including an European Research Council Advanced Grant, and held various academic-management positions.
Gregor Weihs is Vice-Rector for Research at the Universität Innsbruck, Professor of Photonics at its Department for Experimental Physics and Director of Research of the Cluster of Excellence Quantum Science Austria. He received his MSc degree from Universität Innsbruck in 1994. His PhD degree from University of Vienna was awarded “sub auspiciis praesidentis” by the President of the Austrian Republic in 2000. Before returning to Innsbruck, he held a junior faculty position at the University of Vienna, was Consulting Assistant Professor at Stanford University, Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo, and Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada, where he was awarded the Canada Research Chair in Quantum Photonics.
From 2016 to 2021 he was the Vice-President for Natural Sciences and Engineering of the Austrian Science Fund and its interim President for several months. Other major awards include a Starting Grant by the European Research Council and the Wilhelm-Exner medal of the Austrian Trade and Crafts Association. He was a member of the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a Fellow in the QIP program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. His research interests include fundamental physics, quantum and semiconductor optics and quantum information.
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