ACGT people
Aran Lunzer Hokkaido University
Aran Lunzer is a Human-Computer Interaction researcher in the Meme Media Laboratory of Hokkaido University, ACGT's Japanese partner (as featured elsewhere in this issue). Originally from the UK, his first degree was in Engineering from Cambridge University, and his PhD in Computing Science from the University of Glasgow - separated by about 5 years as a programmer and technology investigator at IBM.
In the 1990s the EU ran the Science and Technology Fellowship in Japan, which is how Aran first obtained funding to go there in 1997. Apart from a brief spell back in Europe working at the University of Copenhagen he has been in the same laboratory ever since, his latest job-title reincarnation making him an Associate Professor under a government-funded GCOE (Global Centre of Excellence) project. His main research theme is the design of interfaces to support users in exploring and comparing alternative results in parameter-controlled applications, such as search tools and simulations. Within ACGT he has applied this research in developing the OncoRecipeSheet, a front-end interface to the coordinated Grid-based resources that make up the ACGT OncoSimulator. As a result, the OncoSimulator team can request, execute, archive and compare thousands of simulation runs. They are now using this capability, in conjunction with results from past clinical cases, to try to ascertain whether a simulation of this kind could one day be considered reliable enough to make predictions in clinical settings. Being able to contribute to such potentially game-changing research is one of the great pleasures of being involved in ACGT.
Jessica Michel (ERCIM)
Jessica assumed the responsibilities of ACGT Coordinator in September 2009. She serves as the intermediary between the European Commission and the organisations that comprise the ACGT consortium. In this role, she supervises the efficient financial and administrative management of the ACGT project across participants. Jessica works in close cooperation with Manolis Tsiknakis, ACGT Scientific Coordinator, and Florence Pesce, ACGT Project Assistant, to ensure the overall management of the project.
As Coordinator, Jessica represents ERCIM (the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics; www.ercim.org). Joining ERCIM in 2004, her project management experience includes the administrative and financial coordination of several consortia funded through the Information and Communication Technologies and Infrastructures initiatives of the European Commission. Jessica completed her undergraduate studies at Bowdoin College, in the U.S. state of Maine, where she was raised. After working as a sales representative in various domains (insurance, publishing, internet), Jessica obtained a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from Solvay Business School of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium in 2001. She now lives in Sophia Antipolis, France where ERCIM headquarters are located.