Five VUB researchers awarded prestigious Belgian American Educational Foundation fellowship
Five researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) have been awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF): Arman Kolozyan, Melissa Schuring, Maria Knysh, Fien Meeus and Florine Janssens.
BAEF is a leading independent foundation dedicated to fostering higher education cooperation between Belgium and the United States through its exchange programs. Its fellowships offer talented researchers and students the opportunity to pursue an academic ambition in the partner country. The foundation provides financial support to promising young talent and researchers, with a strong focus on excellence and societal engagement. Diversity, fairness and inclusion are central to its mission.
Melissa Schuring – Language Development and Language Attitudes in Youth
Dr. Melissa Schuring is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brussels Centre for Language Studies (BCLS) at VUB. She specializes in child and youth language as well as research on Anglicisms. In her PhD, she combined insights from language acquisition research and developmental sociolinguistics to examine when and why children use English (loan)words in Dutch.
With her BAEF postdoctoral fellowship, she will spend one year at the Speech, Sign and Systems Lab at the University of Iowa. There, she will continue her work in developmental sociolinguistics, focusing on the development of language attitudes among neurotypical and neurodivergent young language users.
Fien Meeus – Innovative Cell Therapies Against Cancer
Fien Meeus is a biomedical scientist in the final phase of her PhD. Her research focuses on cancer immunotherapy, genetic engineering and cell-based therapies. During her doctoral research, she worked on further developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies for the treatment of solid tumors, with particular attention to improving therapeutic effectiveness and patient accessibility.
After completing her PhD, she will begin a postdoctoral position in the lab of Prof. Dr. Kiavash Movahedi, where she will continue developing genetically engineered cell therapies for the treatment of brain tumors. Thanks to the BAEF fellowship, she will conduct part of this research at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with the lab of Dr. Chris Bennett. There, she will focus on designing synthetic receptors capable of directing the immune response of brain cells in conditions such as brain tumors.
Florine Janssens – Making Hemodialysis Safer and Less Toxic
Florine Janssens is a medical resident in internal medicine at UZ Brussel and a PhD researcher within the NIER (nephrology) research group. Her research focuses on hemodialysis, the most commonly used kidney replacement therapy, in which blood circulates through an extracorporeal circuit and an artificial kidney. Although hemodialysis is life-saving, patient prognosis remains concerning, with a five-year survival rate of only 46%, mainly due to cardiovascular complications.
In her PhD, Florine investigates how immune cells respond during hemodialysis and how treatment protocols can be optimized to reduce thrombo-inflammatory burden. With her BAEF fellowship, she will join the lab of Prof. Martinod in the United States to study neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), a particularly toxic form of immune activation that remains insufficiently explored in the context of hemodialysis. Her goal is to make the treatment not only life-saving, but also less harmful.
Arman Kolozyan – Security and Privacy in Digital Networks
Arman Kolozyan holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. During his studies, he specialized in the security of network communication systems and in zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs). These advanced cryptographic techniques allow someone to prove that a statement is true without revealing the underlying data, for example, proving that you are over 18 without disclosing your identity.
In his research, Arman examines how seemingly minor flaws in such systems can lead to serious security risks. He developed methods to systematically detect and analyze these vulnerabilities. He is now expanding his work toward designing privacy-preserving systems for real-world applications, with the aim of maximally protecting sensitive data while enabling reliable digital services.
Maria Knysh – The Quantum Structure of Black Holes
One of the greatest mysteries in physics is how gravity and quantum mechanics can be reconciled. Black holes provide the ideal theoretical laboratory to explore this question. In her research, Maria Knysh investigates the microscopic structure of black holes using a theoretical framework that - perhaps surprisingly - reveals profound quantum insights.
At University of California, Berkeley, she will further explore what this framework tells us about the fundamental structure of the universe.
Pieter Ballon, Vice-Rector for Research at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel:
“International fellowships such as those of the Belgian American Educational Foundation are invaluable to the VUB. They not only provide our researchers with the opportunity to deepen their expertise at leading institutions, but also strengthen sustainable collaborations across borders. In the current challenging context in the United States, open academic cooperation is more necessary than ever.”
