New Chair and members announced for GÉANT Board of Directors

At this week’s virtual GÉANT General Assembly (GA) meeting our members voted for four open GÉANT Board positions and for the position of Chair of the Board.

Christian Grimm of DFN stands down after the maximum term of six years, the last five of which were as Chair of the Board and mark a highly successful and collaborative period for the GÉANT community. On behalf of the Board and the wider community GÉANT thanks Christian for his excellent service.

New Chair

Replacing Christian as Chair of the Board is Andreas Dudler of SWITCH, who has served on the Board for the past four years.

Andreas Dudler – SWITCH (elected Chair of the Board, one-year term)

Andreas has been Managing Director of SWITCH since May 2012. He is responsible for the deployment of technology and the operation of all SWITCH services. Even before being appointed Managing Director, Andreas Dudler has given SWITCH and the Swiss academic community many years of commitment alongside his main job. As Chairman of the Foundation Council from 1999 to 2011, he was instrumental in establishing and expanding the foundation and its Education and Research Network.

In addition to his work with SWITCH and GÉANT, Andreas also works with ROKJ – a private Swiss social programme helping children suffering from poverty and social exclusion develop to their full potential.

Commenting on today’s appointments, Andreas said, “GÉANT has a great history of collaboration in Europe, together defining and achieving common goals. Our collective strength ensures education and research continue to move rapidly forward, and society benefits from all our work. I am extremely proud to be elected as Chair of the Board and look forward to working with GÉANT Board members and the whole community to build on this great history.”

New and Re-Elected Board Members

Four new Board Member positions arose as a result of Andreas vacating his seat to take on the role of Chair, as well as terms of office due to expire at the end of 2020 for Marko Bonač (ARNES) who has served the maximum six years and steps down, Raimundas Tuminauskas (PSNC) who has served for five years, and Federico Ruggieri (GARR) who has served three years.

We are pleased to now announce the following Members have been elected to the GÉANT Board of Directors​ following the voting process:

• Ana Tavares Pinto – FCCN | FCT (elected for a three-year term)
• Floor Jas – SURF (elected for a three-year term)
• Federico Ruggieri – GARR (re-elected for a three-year term)
• Raimundas Tuminauskas – PSNC (re-elected for a one-year term)

• Ana Tavares Pinto – FCCN | FCT (elected for a three-year term)

  Ana graduated from the University of Aveiro (UA) in Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering and finished her MBA from Católica-Lisbon and NOVA SBE (The Lisbon MBA). She has been working with FCCN since 2000 and with FCT, at FCCN´s unit since 2013, where she coordinates, leads and develops the NREN network teams as the Technical Director.

  With over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications area, network engineering and strategic planning, she is also involved in several international research projects. She is responsible for the RCTS – Science, Technology and Society Network connectivity services, for GigaPIX – the Portuguese Internet Exchange Point, for the RCTS wireless network and for the identity & access management services (eduroam and RCTSaai).

• Floor Jas – SURF (elected for a three-year term)

  Floor brings almost 25 years of experience within SURF, in different roles and departments. She has been interim CTO and CEO for SURFnet. In the new SURF organisation, that started on 15 October 2020, Floor has been assigned the position of Head of Network, Trust & Security.

  Floor strongly believes in international collaboration and encourages this within her teams. Her department has been the birthplace for recent initiatives and services such as eduVPN, InAcademia, eduTEAMS and CLAW.

  Floor has been a member of the GÉANT Programme Planning Committee since 2015 and has additional roles outside SURF: she is a member of the Netherlands Standardisation Forum and the Advisory Council of the Dutch National Cybersecurity Centre.

• Federico Ruggieri, GARR (re-elected for a three-year term)

  Federico has been the Director of GARR since January 2015, following roles as Research Manager at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and Head of GARR Distributed Computing and Storage Department (CSD). Federico has also served as Director of the INFN National Centre for research and development in information technology and telematics disciplines – CNAF – and President of the INFN National Commission for computing and networks. He is Professor of Data Acquisition at the University of Roma Tre and has a list of more than 400 scientific and technological publications.

• Raimundas Tuminauskas, PSNC (re-elected for a one-year term)

  Raimundas joined the Kaunas University of Technology as a full-time network engineer in July 1997 and soon became responsible for high capacity switching and routing in the Lithuanian NREN LITNET. He was working for LITNET as a head of the Backbone Network Unit and later as a head of the Computer Networks Centre at Kaunas University of Technology managing the LITNET network until 2019. During that time, he was also a prominent member and chairman of the LITNET expert group – a technical committee defining the strategy and implementation of LITNET programmes in Lithuania. He was representative of Lithuania in the Future Internet Forum expert group by the DG-CNECT.

  Raimundas joined PSNC in 2019 where he is currently a head of the Network and Services Infrastructure Department, responsible for day to day operations and development of infrastructures in Poznań MAN and Polish NREN PIONIER. He is also heavily involved with PSNC in the multitude of projects both in stages of project preparation and implementation.

  Raimundas has participated in various roles in the GÉANT community since the 2000s. He was nominated primary representative of LITNET in the TERENA GA in 2010, and he has been elected as member of the GÉANT board since 2015, focusing his activities on the composition and evaluation of GN* projects.

  They join existing Board members Kerrie Power of HEAnet, Kristina Lillemets of EENet, Paul Feldman of Jisc, and Valter Nordh of SUNET.

  The GA is GÉANT’s highest governing body, in which representatives of its 39 member organisations meet at least three times a year and is also responsible for electing members to the GÉANT Board of Directors.