Latifah Irakiza

OFFICE MANAGER

Latifah Irakiza is the Office Manager at the European Brain Council as of May 2018. Latifah organized and coordinated administration duties within the EBC team, and helps maintain an efficient work environment, ensuring high levels of organizational effectiveness, communication within EBC, and safety.

Prior to this position, Latifah has worked at luxury hotels in Brussels for the past 10 years.

Monika Hoang

ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR

Monika Hoang joined the EBC Team in August 2022 as Personal Assistant to Executive Director, Frédéric Destrebecq. Alongside agenda setting and coordination, she also provides support to the Brussels Office when needed. Additionally, she is involved in the set up of the European Brain Foundation and the administration of the Belgian Brain Council.

Monika was born in Poland to Vietnamese parents and is set to graduate with a Multilingual Master’s in Linguistics and Literary Studies from Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her passions are diversity, children’s and women’s rights and education. Prior to EBC, she has gained experience in fields such as recruitment, employer branding or product marketing.

Stephanie Kramer

HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS, ADVOCACY & POLICY

Stephanie Kramer joined EBC in March 2016 and leads the Communications, Advocacy & Policy team. Her work revolves around effectively communicating all EBC work to the general public, EU institutions and policymakers and all other relevant stakeholders; shaping the communications of EBC’s advocacy work, policy reports, research projects and EU projects; managing the advocacy and policy monitoring within the health and research space – particularly involving the brain; as well as planning EBC’s external events.

Stephanie holds an LLM in International Law from the University of Edinburgh, and a BA in International Relations & Diplomacy. She has previous communications, external relations and project management experience from internships at the United Nations and private sector organisations. She was a member of the 3rd European Health Parliament and the ThinkYoung Vaccine Coalition. Stephanie has lived and worked in 12 countries around the world, including the United States, the Netherlands, Thailand and Chile.

Eleonora Varntoumian

COMMUNICATIONS & POLICY OFFICER 

Eleonora Varntoumian joined EBC as Communications and Policy Officer in March 2023. In her capacity, she is responsible to promote brain research as a top priority in the EU health policy agenda, engaging with representatives of the European Institutions, national authorities, policymakers, industry partners and relevant stakeholders, and supporting brain awareness campaigns for the general public.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International and European Economic Studies from the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, Greece. Before moving to Brussels, she was working as an Office Administrator at Thessaloniki Tourism Organization, collaborating closely with public authorities and journalists in Greece and abroad.

Since moving to Brussels in 2018, she has been working in the oncology field in policy and communications, advocating for cancer patients at the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC) and cancer nurses at the European Oncology Nursing Society (EONS). Some of the key areas of her work include the EU4Health programme, the implementation of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the EU Mission on Cancer, amending the Carcinogens and Mutagens at Work Directive (CMD4) and the EU-OSHA Healthy Workplaces Campaign.

In terms of policy-making, Eleonora was elected as President of the European Health Parliament (7th edition) 2021-2022, she is a Board member at the Institute of Cancer & Crisis and an Advisory Council member in Etterbeek, Brussels (2021-2023).

Elke De Witte

HEAD OF PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Elke De Witte is the Projects Team leader at EBC. In her role she is primarily responsible for the delivery of current European projects, such as EBRA, PRIME and Brainteaser.

Elke has a background in clinical research and holds a PhD in Neurolinguistics. Her research focuses on language mapping and cognitive assessments in awake brain surgery. Prior to her position at EBC, Elke worked in San Francisco for three years, first as a Postdoc researcher at the Biomagnetic lab/Neurosurgery department of UCSF Medical Center and later as General Manager U.S. for LynxCare, a medical technology company automating the extraction of outcome data from medical records using Natural Language Processing.

Carla Finocchiaro

SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER

Carla has 25 years experience in brain research public funding mainly dealing with EC grants and tenders opportunities.

Graduated in 1991 in Political Science International orientation, during her studies she had the opportunity to deepen her knowledge of Community Law, Direct and Indirect EU Financing  at the University of Strasbourg, France. From 1995 till now Carla is carrying out consultancy activities within the framework of non-repayable funding programmes (Community Programmes, Structural Funds) – dealing with grant preparation and project management of EU funded projects as well as training on grant writing. In this capacity, she supports EBC since 2003 in the preparation of grant proposals and in the management of funded project as Senior Project Manager.

Dieyenaba Faye

Projects Intern

Dieyenaba Faye joined EBC as Projects Intern in March 2023. She primarily supports in the delivery of EU-funded research projects.

Dieyenaba was born in Italy to Senegalese parents and is set to graduate with a Master in Biomedicine – Human Nutrition from UCLouvain (Belgium). Through a science page, she popularises nutrition science promoting healthier food and lifestyle choices.

Prior to EBC, Dieyenaba worked at the European Pain Federation EFIC as Communications and Advocacy Trainee.