Scientific Committee

Piotr Kramarz is a physician, with a PhD in immunology of viral infections, and eight years of clinical practice at a teaching hospital in the field of infectious diseases. During the period 1997−2000, he worked at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), first in the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) and then as a medical epidemiologist. Since 2007, he has worked at ECDC as a Deputy Head of the Unit and, since 2024, as the Chief Scientist. His research interests include burden of communicable diseases and vaccine-preventable diseases. 

Angeliki Melidou is a virologist and has been an associate professor of molecular microbiology and virology at the Microbiology Department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Medical School in Greece since 2012. She has been working at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) since 2016, and is currently a Principal Expert in Respiratory Viruses. Her expertise lies in the areas of microbiology, disease surveillance, and scientific advice related to respiratory viruses. 

Alicia Barrasa is part of the EPIET Alumni network which brings together more than 600 European field epidemiologists and public health microbiologists. She has a PhD and an MSc in public health and epidemiology. She has worked in the area of HIV, focussing on factors associated with disease progression, and as Scientific Coordinator for the Spanish field epidemiology training programme (2004−2008), and EPIET (2008−2020). She is currently working for the UK field epidemiology training programme. She was also a member of the TEPHINET Accreditation Working Group from 2019 to 2023. 

Bruno Ciancio is a medical epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist. After working as clinical researcher in Italy and completing his EPIET training in the UK, he joined the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in 2006. At ECDC he focussed on implementing EU strategies for increasing influenza vaccination coverage, including defining the scientific basis for vaccination strategies, the setting up of the I-MOVE network for monitoring vaccine effectiveness, and the strengthening of surveillance. Between 2011 and 2020 he focussed on establishing the mathematical modelling, GIS, and biostatistical functions of the Centre, supporting the issuing of more impactful scientific outputs, and coordinated the development of EpiPulse, the Atlas of Infectious Diseases, and the ECDC map maker tool (EMMa). Since 2020 he coordinates ECDC surveillance activities, including the implementation of strategies for harnessing new technologies, such as eHealth, molecular typing, and artificial intelligence, and the implementation of the new ECDC mandate. During the COVID-19 pandemic he worked as incident manager and coordinator of the surveillance team. Bruno Ciancio has authored about fifty scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and a book chapter on influenza surveillance.

Carlos das Neves has been EFSA’s Chief Scientist since 2022. Before joining EFSA, he was the Director of Research and Internationalisation at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute (NVI) and served as Head of Virology and Head of Food Safety & Emerging Threats at the NVI. Carlos is a veterinarian (DVM – Technical University of Lisbon) and holds a PhD in veterinary sciences (Norwegian School of Veterinary Sciences). He also has Postgraduate Certificates in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Public Policy Analysis from the London School of Economics and Political Science. In April 2024, he was appointed as a member and co-chair of the One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP), the scientific and strategic advisory group to the Quadripartite organisations – Food and Agriculture Organisation, UN Environment Programme, World Health Organization and World Organisation for Animal Health. 

Hana Orlíková is a medical epidemiologist. As a senior epidemiologist, she specializes primarily in vector-borne diseases, surveillance, outbreak investigation, training in epidemiology and public health, One Health, and vaccinology. She participates in European projects focused on research of vector-borne diseases and surveillance. She cooperates with the ECDC as the National Focal Points. Since 2011, she has been nominated as the National Coordinator of the Coordinating Competent Body.

She is a medical doctor and, after graduating in 1991, worked as a field epidemiologist and public health specialist at the Regional Public Health Authority of the Moravian-Silesian Region in the Czech Republic until 2008. From 2008 to 2011, she worked at the National Institute of Public Health – National Institute of Hygiene in Warsaw, Poland, where she completed the ECDC European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) in 2010. Since 2011, she has been working at the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology of the Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the National Institute of Public Health in Prague, Czechia. Since 2023, she has been an external lecturer at the Third Faculty of Medicine of Charles University in Prague, at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

José Canevari is a veterinary epidemiologist with a PhD in mathematical modelling and quantitative analytical methods. He is currently a Principal Expert in Mathematical Modelling at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) where he works on the application of statistical and mathematical models to support public health decision-making. Prior to joining ECDC, he held senior roles at the Victorian Department of Health in Australia where he led modelling and analytical epidemiology activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, including vaccine effectiveness studies, scenario modelling, and network-based analyses. He has also worked as a consultant at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and as an operational epidemiologist in national emergency response programmes in New Zealand and Argentina. His research interests include infectious disease modelling, vaccine-preventable diseases, outbreak preparedness, and the burden of communicable diseases.

Koen Blot is a medical doctor specialised in general internal medicine (2020). He obtained his PhD degree in epidemiology and prevention of infectious diseases (2021) at the University of Ghent, Belgium. 

He made the transition from clinical to public health work after the first COVID-19 pandemic wave in 2020, coordinating the epidemiological surveillance of hospitalised COVID-19 patients. In 2021 he took the position as Head of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at Belgium’s National Public Health Institute (Sciensano). 

From 2021 onwards he has developed and been implementing an operational plan for reinforcing Belgium’s capacity for infectious diseases surveillance during crisis and peacetime expanding from not only COVID-19 but other relevant pathogens for public health. This includes transversal domains such as digitalisation and integration of surveillance systems, preparedness and risk evaluation, and academic collaboration across the surveillance pillars at the level of sentinel laboratories, general physicians, hospitals and wastewater-based epidemiology. 

Miłosz Parczewski graduated as an MD from the Pomeranian Medical University, Szczecin, Poland in 2002 and gained a PhD in the molecular epidemiology of HIV in 2007. In 2016, he became a professor of medicine based on his scientific publications on HIV resistance and transmission networks. Between 2017 and 2024, Miłosz was the President of the Polish Scientific AIDS Society, and is currently also a council member of the European Society on Antiviral Resistance and associate editor of the BMJ journal ‘Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI)’ and ‘HIV Medicine’ journal. He is currently Head of Department for Infectious, Tropical Diseases and Acquired Immunodeficiency at the Pomeranian Medical University, Szczecin, Poland and President of the European AIDS Clinical Society for the term 2025−2027 and the Polish National Consultant for Infectious Diseases, appointed in 2023. His research focuses on the molecular epidemiology of HIV infection and hepatitis C co-infection. He is author of multiple scientific publications in the field of HIV/AIDS, and an investigator in a number of clinical trials and cohorts, including EUROSIDA. 

Nadine Zeitlmann is a senior epidemiologist at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin, Germany and a part-time scientific coordinator for ECDC’s European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET). She has a Masters in Public Health from the University of Munich and in Applied Epidemiology from the Berlin Charité. Between 2011 and 2013, she worked in the field of public health and infectious disease epidemiology in Denmark before completing her EPIET/PAE fellowship at the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority in Munich, Germany, 2013−2015. She then worked as an epidemiologist in different international programmes at the RKI for eight years where she supported partner countries in North Africa and the Balkan peninsula in building up surveillance, outbreak investigation and crisis management structures and implementing International Health Regulations (IHR). During this time, she was also deployed as an epidemiologist for various international assignments on the African and Asian continents. She also worked as a field epidemiologist in various COVID-19 outbreak investigations in Germany during the pandemic. In addition to her role as an EPIET Coordinator, she currently works as a coordinator in the field of epidemic intelligence, early warning and outbreak coordination in RKI’s ‘Unit for crisis management, outbreak investigation and training programmes’.