During the largest yet FENS Forum, which attracted over 8000 participants to Paris in July 2022, the Governing Council of FENS announced its new upcoming leadership. Together with Ole Kiehl (President elect) and Aniko Korosi (treasurer elect), Dr. Panayiota Poirazi, a Research Director at IMBB-FORTH, will be responsible for the management and administration of FENS as its Secretary General.

Founded in 1998 at the first Forum of European Neuroscience, the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) is the main organisation for neuroscience in Europe. FENS currently represents 44 national and single discipline neuroscience societies across 33 European countries.

FENS is the voice of European neuroscience, representing more than 21,000 European neuroscientists. Its activities span five broad areas: scientific meetings, higher education and training, the European Journal of Neuroscience, outreach and advocacy and membership.

FENS promotes neuroscience research to policy-makers, funding bodies and the general public, both regionally and internationally. It also promotes excellence in neuroscience research and facilitates exchanges and networking between neuroscientists within the European Research Area and beyond.

The FENS leadership is composed of a Governing Council, the Executive Committee and an Advisory Board.

• Composed of representatives of full and associate member societies, and the Executive Committee, the Governing Councilis the highest body of FENS.
• The Executive Committeecomprises the President, the Secretary General, the Treasurer, the chairpersons of the Standing Committees and of the Host Society Committee. It is responsible for the management and administration of the organisation.
• The Advisory Boardconsists of the Past President, the President-elect, the Secretary General-Elect and the Treasurer-elect.

Members of the Executive Committee have a 4-year term. As elected officials, they first serve on the Advisory Board for two years before they assume their formal role in the Executive Committee for another two years. Dr. Poirazi will serve FENS from 2022-2024 as Secretary General elect and from 2024-2026 as Secretary General.

Short CV

Panayiota Poirazi is a Research Director and head of the Dendrites Lab at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH). She has a Bachelor in Mathematics from the University of Cyprus, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She is interested in understanding how dendrites contribute to complex brain functions and uses computational modelling approaches, often in conjunction with experiments, to answer this question. Her work has significantly advanced our understanding of how single neurons compute, by revealing the power of dendrites in solving difficult problems. She received numerous awards for her academic achievements, including an Einstein Foundation fellowship, the Alexander von Humboldt Wilhelm Bessel Research Award, an ERC Starting Grant and an EMBO YIP award, among others. She is a member of EMBO, a founding member of the Association of ERC Grantees, and was the first Chair of the FENS-Kavli Network of excellence.

For more information, please visit the FENS website:
https://www.fens.org/news-activities/news/fens-newly-elected-leadership

Dr. Poirazi’s lab at IMBB-FORTH: www.dendrites.gr