Our board tries to meet once a month to put together fun events for you to connect with the Boston Belgian Society members. We always welcome support from non-board members, so feel free to reach out with any event ideas or questions you have! If you are interested in joining the board, let us know.
Adrianna Vandeuren
President
Adrianna is originally from Brussels. As a true “brusseleer” she is perfectly bilingual. She moved to Boston in 2019 and is now a Ph.D. candidate in Biology at Northeastern University. Her hobbies include hosting dinner parties with friends, sailing on the Charles river and exploring National Parks throughout the US. She decided to run for president to help create an inclusive society that helps connect people in fun and useful ways.
Wouter Van De Pontseele
Vice President
Wouter is originally from Ghent. He is currently working as a Research Fellow at MIT’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science where he develops and tests superconducting quantum technology to search for new particles and measure small microwave signals. He arrived in Boston in 2017 through a collaboration between the University of Oxford and Harvard University. With the support of the BAEF fellowship, he started at MIT in 2020 as a postdoctoral fellow. He enjoys cycling, sailing, hiking and skiing while discovering New England. As the Vice-president, he thoroughly enjoys helping wherever possible and seeing where this initiative brings us!
Tom Rogiers
Secretary/Treasurer
Tom moved to Boston in October 2018 for a job at KPMG LLP where he advises Fortune 500 companies in security and controls within their IT applications. Tom has a Professional Bachelor degree in applied computer science from the PXL in Hasselt and is passionate about meeting new people and continously educate people about Belgian culture and heritage.
Nathalie Callaert
Social media and graphic design
Nathalie is a Belgian-native residing in Boston. She completed her graduate program in Pharmaceutical Care at Ghent University. After finishing a Clinical Pharmacy internship at the University of Chicago Medicine she relocated to the East Coast and currently works as a Clinical Staff Pharmacist for the BILH network. She loves going for walks in the northern suburban woods or on the beach and spending time with friends and family.
Pierre Foidart
Event Coordinator
Pierre got his M.D./Ph.D. specialised in medical oncology from the “Université de Liège” in Belgium. He joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute affiliated with the Harvard Medical School in 2019 to perform postdoctoral research in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). He enjoys bringing Belgians together for a beer (a Belgian one of course), to celebrate the 21st of July together around a BBQ or even to watch the Red Devils play and sing the national anthem that he knows by heart! This is why he felt called to become the event coordinator for the Boston Belgian Society.
Carmen Adriaens
Industry Liaison Officer
Carmen is originally from around Leuven, Vlaams Brabant. She first came to the US as a PhD student and spent a year doing research at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. After her PhD, her research and personal life brought her to Boston, where she started as a postdoc at Mass General Hospital/DFCI/Broad Institute. After 3 years of postdoc, she moved to industry to do more translational biomedical research. Currently, she works at a small startup in Cambridge and lives in Brookline with her husband Bryce. She loves organizing events to bring people together and helping out new arrivals to navigate the Boston area.
Florent Laval
Academic Liaison Officer
Florent was born and raised in the region of Spa. He graduated from Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech with a Bio-engineering degree in 2017. During his studies, he seized every opportunity to travel and spent time at Newcastle University (UK), the University of Québec in Montréal (Canada) and the University of Toronto (Canada). He finally landed in Boston in 2019 to complete his PhD at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.
He joined the Boston Belgian Society board in 2023 with a particular focus on connecting people within the academic world, as well as on bridging the academic and industry sectors.
In his free time, you can find him at the yoga studio, running along the Charles and training for the 2024 Chicago marathon, or on Adrianna’s boat.
