Contact and Meet the team

Curious to find out who we are?

The team for 2024 consists of Yota as the VU Amsterdam Summer School Coordinator, Celia and Esther as the school’s International Officers, and Mark as Digital Marketer. As your team, we’re here to answer any questions you may have before, during, or even after the programme. Our job is to make your experience at the school as comfortable as possible! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out via e-mail.

This year marks the sixth term of VU Graduate Winter School. Until now, we have welcomed participants from over 70 different countries, and we hope you too will join us this January!

On this page, you can learn more about the Quality Assurance Board, Certificate Board and the Winter School team. You can find contact information at the bottom of the page.

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Information Session

Silvester Draaijer

Dr Silvester Draaijer holds the position of programme manager at the VU Education Lab, part of the VU Centre for Teaching & Learning at VU Amsterdam. Before taking on this role, he has more than 20 years of experience as a teacher, consultant and educational researcher. He holds a PhD in the field of testing in higher education. Silvester Draaijer has over 20 years of experience in advising on educational innovation.
Dr. Sanchayan Banerjee

Dr. Sanchayan Banerjee is an Assistant Professor of Environmental and Behavioural Economics at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) in VU Amsterdam. Sanchayan obtained his MS and PhD from the London School of Economics and teaches in areas of environmental economics, applied quantitative methods and behavioural science and public policy. He is a fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.
Meike Morren

Meike Morren is an Assistant Professor in Marketing at VU since 2012, after she obtained her PhD in Method and Statistics from Tilburg University. Her research evolves around sustainability issues in which she likes to use advanced modelling approaches to discover patterns in environmentally friendly behaviour. Recently, she has synthesized survey findings in cross-cultural meta-analysis, and conducted an intervention on food choices. At the moment, she applies Natural Language Processing methods to analyse text data.

Role

The Certificate Board assesses courses and handles extraordinary cases including student complaints, exam fraud, and is called upon in case assessment re-evaluation is necessary. It also analyses data from evaluation surveys completed by students.
Members
- Frans van der Wel (Chair): on behalf of STOK (former president)
- André Ran: on behalf of the exam board (former member)
- Wouter ten Have: on behalf of Raad van Toezicht

Yota

Yota is the new VU Graduate Winter School coordinator.
Celia

During her Erasmus Mundus Master's Degree in Euroculture Celia studied in Germany, France and Mexico, where she discovered the value of intercultural exchange. After graduation Celia did a traineeship at the Academic Cooperation Association in Brussels and developed her curiosity for internationalization. In 2021 she started to work for the VU as a Summer and Winter School Officer.
“From my own experiences I have learned that studying abroad can be a life changing experience. That is why I always encourage students to go abroad and challenge themselves in a new environment, making new friends and learning from all different kinds of people and cultures”
Esther

Esther Fris joined the Summer and Winter School team at VU Amsterdam as an international officer in 2024. She started working in international education in graduate school and holds a Master of Science in Sociology degree from the University of Amsterdam and a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies degree from the University of Groningen.