Lukas Van Oudenhove

Lukas graduated as a Medical Doctor at KU Leuven in 2001. During his specialist training in psychiatry, he was granted a PhD-fellowship of the Research Foundation – Flanders, resulting in his doctoral thesis ‘Psychobiological mechanisms in functional dyspepsia. Converging evidence from psychophysiology & functional brain imaging?’ (KU Leuven, 2008). He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders at the Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Diseases (TARGID) of KU Leuven from 2009 until 2012. In 2012, he was appointed assistant research professor of the KU Leuven Special Research Fund, allowing him to establish his own group, the Laboratory for Brain-Gut Axis Studies (LaBGAS). His research has been internationally authoritative, as reflected by more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, numerous invited and abstract presentations at scientific meetings, and several international research awards. In 2020, Lukas got granted an ERC Consolidator Grant MoodBugs, focus on microbiota-gut-brain signaling mechanisms mediating the impact of the gut microbiota on stress and fear responses in humans.

Boushra Dalile

Boushra Dalile is a senior PhD researcher. She graduated with a BA in Psychology from Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, an MS.c. in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Skövde, Sweden, and will soon graduate with a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the KU Leuven in Belgium. She conducts interdisciplinary research investigating the influence of nutrition-related interventions on sensitivity to psychosocial stress and anxiety-related processes, with the aim of unveiling mechanisms of action.. Specifically, she focuses on the effects of dietary fiber and the role of short-chain fatty acids in the human microbiota-gut-brain axis. Her scientific work contributed to multiple conference abstracts and peer-reviewed publications.

Marcus Böhme

Dr. Marcus Böhme is a R&D Specialist working at the Nestlé Research Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland where he is leading projects on the Gut-Brain Axis. Prior to joining Nestlé, he completed his undergraduate training in Nutritional Science at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany, where he also received his PhD in Neuroscience. Subsequently, Dr. Böhme undertook a 4-year postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Prof. John Cryan at the University College Cork, Ireland, where he studied the role of the gut microbiome on brain and cognitive health across the lifespan. His research focusses on how diet shapes brain health and behavior with the gut microbiota acting as a novel mediator between diet and maintenance of brain health.

Adam Wilkinson

Barry Coatesworth

Barry is Director with Guide house working within Risk, Compliance and Security. He has over 30 years experience in energy, finance and public sector, and is an internationally recognized cyber security expert and advisor. He was also part of the Industry Advisory Group for the the Cyber Essential Scheme in conjunction with UK’s Department of Business, Energy and Industry Strategy; and as are research advisor to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology(POST) on Big data, Ethics and privacy. He has also written a number or articles and is currently working on two forthcoming books

Mark Lippett

Mark started with XMOS in 2008 in the role of VP Engineering, before being appointed as COO and taking the helm as CEO in 2016. Mark has extensive experience across the electronics industry, with involvement in both blue-chip and start-up companies.

Prior to XMOS Mark was founder and CTO of Ignios – a semiconductor IP company specialising in resource management in multicore architectures which was sold to Fujitsu and CoWare.  Mark also founded and ran web companies and a semiconductor design services agency.

Earlier in his career Mark worked for numerous blue-chip companies, including Philips, Thorn-EMI, Texas Instruments and Bell-Labs (Lucent micro-electronics), holding roles in the UK and overseas.

Mark holds a Masters degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Surrey and an MBA from Henley Management College.

Vasu Jakkal

Vasu is a passionate champion of building a better, safer, and more resilient world for all. She brings nearly 20 years of technology industry experience to Microsoft, where she is responsible for crafting the strategy, defining the go-to-market motions that help customers simplify and fortify their security posture, and guiding the execution of all aspects of SCI marketing. In her role, she also works closely with engineering to shape product strategy and roadmaps. Vasu is a dedicated advocate for diversity, and for expanding the opportunities for women in all fields of technology.

Prior to Microsoft, Vasu served as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of FireEye, overseeing the company’s global marketing organization. Previously to FireEye, she was vice president of corporate marketing at Brocade. Earlier in her career, she served as chief of staff to LSI’s CEO and was head of strategic initiatives and marketing for the company. She spent more than a decade at Intel in a variety of leadership roles in marketing, engineering, strategy, and general management.

Vasu holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from College of Engineering, Pune. She is also a graduate of Stanford’s Executive Education in Strategic Marketing Management program.