HUN-REN Advisory Board

The HUN-REN Advisory Board is a body consisting of internationally recognized researchers assisting the work of the President and the Governing Board. The primary tasks of the Advisory Board are to:

contribute with advice to enhance HUN-REN’s international relations and to increase its competitiveness;
formulate recommendations on the strategic issues concerning HUN-REN;
contribute with information about international good practices for the development of HUN-REN;

Prof. Em. Alexander J.B. Zehnder, Chairman of the HUN-REN Advisory Board

Prof. Em. Dr. Alexander J.B. Zehnder is a visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore and Professor Emeritus at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), President of the ETH-Domain Governing Board and responsible for ETH-Zurich and ETH-Lausanne Universities and four research institutes (PSI, EMPA, EAWAG, WSL). Previously, he was Director of EAWAG and was on the faculty of both Wageningen University (NL) and Stanford University (USA). He is a highly cited scientist in microbiology.

Sir Philip Campbell FRS

Sir Philip Campbell PhD DSc FRS FRAS FInstP FISC FRSA has spent most of his career as a professional editor in science publishing. After post-doctoral research in upper-atmospheric physics at the University of Leicester, he became Physical Sciences Editor at Nature, and then the founding Editor-in-Chief of Physics World at the UK's Institute of Physics. In 1995 he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Nature. In 2018 he became the Editor-in-Chief of Nature's publisher Springer Nature, which also publishes many scholarly books and academic journals. He retired from science publishing in 2023, and now undertakes advisory roles in the research landscape. While at Nature, he spearheaded editorial content and also new multidisciplinary journals dedicated to research directly addressing societal challenges. He also championed scientific mentoring and good lab management. He was knighted for services to science in 2015. In 2019 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Association of British Science Writers. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2024.

Prof. Nam-Joon Cho, Ph.D.

Nam-Joon Cho, Ph.D. is currently the MRS-Singapore Chair Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and Director of Flagship Programmes at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the Project Leader and Principal Investigator at Stanford University SyneRx Antiviral Drug Discovery Center (AViDD). He is also the Adjunct Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, and a member of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council (PUAC) of the Republic of Korea. He currently serves as President of the Korean Scientists and Engineers Association in Singapore and member of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Prof. Steve Evans

Prof. Steve Evans, MAE, FIET, FRSA, FLSW, CEng is Director of Research in Industrial Sustainability at the University of Cambridge, Professor of Supply Chain Sustainability at the Royal College of Art, and Professor at the Cranfield School of Management. He is a Fellow and elected Member of Council, at the Wolfson College Cambridge and elected Treasurer and Board Member of the Academia Europaea. He is also Chairperson of Project X Global. Some previous positions include Professor of Life Cycle Engineering at Cranfield University and Special Adviser to the UK House of Lords and Founder of various cleantech start-ups.

Mr. David P. Goldman

Mr. David P. Goldman is Deputy Editor of Asia Times and the author of You Will Be Assimilated: China's Plan to Sino-Form the World. A Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute, he is the author of its study, "Restoring American Manufacturing: A Practical Guide." He has published in the Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, Newsweek, Strategika, Tablet Magazine, Weltwoche and other publications, including First Things, where he was a senior editor during 2009-2012. Previously, he was global head of debt research at Bank of America and head of credit strategies at Credit Suisse. He consulted for the US National Security Council during the first Reagan Administration and for the Office of Net Assessment of the US Defense Department during the Obama Administration.

Prof. Michael Kaschke

Prof. Dr. Michael Kaschke is a German physicist and manager. He is chairman of the supervisory board of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and president of the Association for the Promotion of Science and Humanities in Germany. For many years, he was a top executive in the German high-tech industry, most recently as President and CEO of the ZEISS Group from 2011 - 2020. He has held supervisory board mandates in large, listed companies. Currently, Dr. Kaschke is, in addition to other functions, a shareholder of Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG. In 2019, he was elected a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He also lectures in optical medical technology at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Dr. Jana Kolar

Dr. Jana Kolar is the Executive Director of CERIC-ERIC, a European research infrastructure that specializes in the characterization of materials and biomaterials. Previously, Dr. Kolar was the Chair of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), the Director-General of Science and Technology at a ministry in Slovenia, Chairperson of the Boards of the Slovenian Technology Agency and Slovenian Research Agency, and a member of the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.
Trained as a chemist, she published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and a European patent. She has received the Zois Award for outstanding scientific achievements from the Government of Slovenia.

Prof. Lam Khin Yong

Prof. Lam Khin Yong is Vice President (Industry) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Prof. Lam Khin Yong oversees and drives industry partnerships in Nanyang Technological University (NTU) as its first Vice President (Industry). He was previously the Senior Vice President (Research) and Chief of Staff, he guides NTU’s university-wide research and implementation. Before joining NTU, Prof. Lam was the Founding Executive Director of the Institute of High-Performance Computing and Founding Executive Director of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Graduate Academy. He is an Authority Member of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS). He was conferred the French Legion of Honour (Chevalier) in 2017.

Prof. István Módy

István Módy, Ph.D. is the Tony Coelho Distinguished Professor of Neurology and Distinguished Professor of Physiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and he also holds a part‐time W3 Professorship in the Department of Epileptology at the Bonn University Medical Center. He received numerous international scientific awards, including the Michael Prize for Epilepsy, the American Epilepsy Society’s Basic Scientist Award, the Hauptmann Prize, the J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine, among others. He obtained a Ph.D. in Physiology at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) and continued as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute, in Munich, and in Toronto.

Prof. Richard G. Pestell

Prof. Richard G. Pestell, M.D., Ph.D., AO., MB, BS, MBA, FRACP, FACP (USA), FRCP (Ireland), FRCP (London) is currently President of the Pennsylvania Cancer and Regenerative Medicine Research Center and Wistar Institute Cancer Center (Associate) in Philadelphia, USA. He is a clinician scientist with >700 published works (H index 154), holds patents in cancer diagnostics and treatment and founded 6 biotechnology companies. He is the past President of INCTR (USA), a global not-for-profit working to impact cancer in the developing world, was founding Director of the Delaware Valley Institute for Clinical and Translational Science and was most recently Executive Vice President of the Thomas Jefferson University and Hospitals (Philadelphia).

Ms. Melanie Seymour

Ms. Melanie Seymour has over 35 years’ experience in finance and banking, holding senior roles in technology, operations, change management and running her own business. She spent 15 years as an entrepreneur starting and running two businesses. She joined BlackRock in 2011 after 2 years as a Benefits Consultant at Hewitt. At BlackRock, she first led a UK Pensions business before being asked to move to Hungary to setup the Blackrock Innovation Hub. In 2020, she was appointed as the Global Head of Client Experience where she is responsible for delivering outstanding client experience across all products and distribution channels. In 2017, after serving three years as Vice President, she joined the Advisory Board of Women in Banking and Finance.