AFS board
AFS board is re-elected yearly. The following members have been elected for the year 2021:
- Liudvika Leišytė (Chair)
- Darius Čeburnis
- Martynas Gavutis
- Visvaldas Kairys
- Vytaute Starkuviene-Erfle
Liudvika Leišytė is a member of Futura Scientia since its establishment. She is Higher Education Professor and Vice-Director of the Center for Higher Education at the Technical University of Dortmund in Germany and is a visiting senior scholar at the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente in the Netherlands. Prof. Leišytė’s research focuses on academic work and organizational transformation of universities in the context of higher education and research policy reforms. After finishing her PhD at CHEPS, University of Twente in 2007, in 2008-2009 she carried out her postdoc at the Harvard University, Center for European Studies, USA. In 2018 she was a visiting professor at Nagoya University, Japan and in 2019 June - Stanford University, USA. She has published numerous articles in prestigious journals in higher education studies and in public administration. In 2018 she received the Emerald Literati Award for the highly commended paper in the Learning Organization journal. During her career to date she has published more than 100 publications, among which five books, carried out successfully around 30 research and consultancy projects, has supervised 15 doctoral students. In the policy and consultancy capacity, she worked as an institutional evaluation coordinator for EUA for ten years and serves continuously in various expert roles in different countries, including the Horizon 2020 programme European Research Council and the Lithuanian Research Council grant proposal reviews. Currently she is a panel member evaluating the national Norwegian centers of excellence programme, a re-elected member of international advisory board of Hungarian Higher Education Accreditation Agency and a board member of Futura Scientia. In 2020 she was elected to be the Chair of the Futura Scientia Board. For more information please see:
Darius Ceburnis received a PhD degree in Natural Sciences in 1997 from the Institute of Physics in Vilnius, Lithuania and has been working at the National University of Ireland Galway since 2001. Darius Ceburnis served and the chairman of the AFS board during 2011-2015 and as a board member during 2016-2018. He has been regularly sitting on Lithuanian Science Council review panels since 2011 and of several other European countries and European Commission. His most significant research work on marine aerosols has been recognized by three Nature publications. Darius Ceburnis has published over 100 peer-review papers to-date and is among the top 1% of cited authors in the geosciences discipline (Clarivate Analytics). He received Lithuanian Science Award in 2011 (with co-authors) and Lithuanian Scientists Abroad Award in 2015.
Martynas Gavutis is a member of "Futura Scientia" since its establishment in 2009. He holds Master degree in Biophysics (Vilnius University) and PhD in Biochemistry (JW Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main). Since 2006 M. Gavutis is a senior research scientist at the Center for Physical Sciences and Technology in Vilnius. His scientific activities are development of artificial biological membrane systems and prototyping biochips for molecular and cellular applications (medical diagnostics).
Since 2018 M. Gavutis is a physics teacher at a gymnasium in Vilnius.
Visvaldas Kairys received PhD in Chemistry from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (USA) in 1997. Since then, he was a post-doc at University of Iowa (USA), Center of Advanced Research in Biotechnology (Rockville, Maryland, USA), and At University of Madeira (Portugal). In 2011 he returned to Lithuania. He is a senior researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology, a part Life Sciences Center of Vilnius University.
Vytaute Starkuviene-Erfle
Vytautė Starkuvienė-Erfle recieved her PhD in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at University of Göttingen, Germany, 2001. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) in Heidelberg, 2001-2006. Since 2007 she leads a research team at the Heidelberg University and, in addition, since 2016 works at the Institute of Biosciences, Vilnius University Life Sciences Center as a professor of Cell Biology.