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Alumni advisory board
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Alumni Advisory Board
UEL's Alumni Engagement team launched the Alumni Advisory Board in 2018. The board exists to advise on university wide projects and initiatives and represents the alumni body in relations with the University and its Alumni Engagement team. The board has been a great success to date and has created a wide range of activities that work towards improving both the student and alumni experience.
Members of the Alumni Advisory Board pictured with Professor Amanda Broderick, UEL Vice-Chancellor and President.
Meet the chairs of the Alumni Advisory Board
Jacqui Bashford, Chair of the UEL Alumni Advisory Board
Awarded a First Class BA (Hons) degree in Business Management from the University of East London (UEL) as a mature part-time student from 2006- 2011. In addition, she holds a Yale University - Yale School of Management Service Management Accreditation. Promoted to her current position six months after earning her first class degree, working for AT&T, Jacqui is responsible for leading a global team that supports complex sales opportunities for the fortune 500 companies.
More about Jacqui
Jacqui has almost 30 years of experience in the telecommunications and technology industry and has held positions in operations, service delivery pre-sales bids and service management at BT and Concert. Before establishing a career in the telecommunications and technology industry, Jacqui worked in the government sector for eight years. Jacqui is passionate about being active within her community and has been involved with several local initiatives. She has held a volunteer position as a governor at Bromley Hall for children with special needs in support of BT Business in the Community Partnership.
As a founding member of the AT&T EMEA Women's Network, Jacqui currently leads a global mentor circle. Jacqui also volunteers her time to support the Aspire programme, AT&T's philanthropic education outreach initiative, focusing on building competencies that help participants move into the workforce with a clear competitive advantage. She is an AT&T Business Solutions Diversity and Inclusion committee member.
Jacqui has been involved with the AAB as subcommittee lead for the last three years and vice-chair since last year.
Dr. Vasiliki E. Kalodimou, Vice-Chair of the UEL Alumni Advisory Board
Vasiliki E. Kalodimou is the CEO & Founder of MCV CytoMed Limited, previously was the director at the Flow Cytometry-Research and Regenerative Medicine Department of IASO Maternity-Pediatric and Research Hospital in Athens, Greece, as well as the CBB Director & Processing Facility Director at MedStem-Cryobanks of IASO. Before her current appointment, Kalodimou served as a haematology research associate at General University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, and as an instructor at both the General University Hospital of Heraklion and the Ipokratios Medical-Technical Institute of Athens.
More about Vasiliki
Dr Kalodimou received her bachelor's degree in Human Physiology and her master's degree in Human Molecular Genetics from the Imperial College, London, UK. She completed her PhD at the University of Medicine in Athens, Greece, with an emphasis on stem cells and factors affecting their viability and absolute numbers.
Since 2006, Dr Kalodimou has studied and worked with stem cells from placenta, umbilical cord and adipose tissue, in everyday practice and their applications in regenerative medicine, clinical trials, medical tourism and flow cytometry. Also is working in the area of human genetics and population genetics as well as cellular standards.
In collaboration with the Hellenic Flow Cytometry Society, Dr Kalodimou has developed quality control schemes for stem cell marker enumeration. The goal of her work is to find helpful new applications for flow cytometry, evaluate risk factors for stem cell infusion, and improve the clarity and accessibility of measurements by flow cytometry. Her work quantifies and ranks all risks of flow cytometry enumeration to prevent and minimize the false-positive results from different cytometer uses. She is also working to establish combinations of monoclonal antibodies for mesenchymal and adipose tissue stem cell enumeration.
In addition to collaboration with state universities and pharmaceutical companies on research projects (14), Kalodimou frequently publishes (43 & 9 books) her findings. She has 2 patents.
The Greek version of her first book, Basic Principles in Flow Cytometry, was published in 2010 (in 2015 was placed as reference material in winter semester 7th at Alexandrio ATEI Thessaloniki's-GR), while in 2013 the English version of her book was published by the American Health Organization and AABB standards - AABB Press USA.
The English version of her book was placed as a medical student reference material in the library of Stanford University in 2014, while is a reference material book in Bharathiar University, India for postgraduate diploma in molecular medicine. Since 2016 it has been a bestseller. The two books are the only books in the field about flow cytometry.
Her new book: A Handbook to Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Regenerative Medicine was published in June, 2015 by Speg.co.
She is:
- AABB Lead/Sole assessor USA,
- a member at the AABB Cellular Therapy Accreditation Program Unit for worldwide standards development and accreditation,
- the Leader (2013-2016) at AABB CT Subsection: CT Product Manufacturing and Testing,
- voting Committee Member/writer at AABB Cellular Therapies Standards Committee (9th & 10th edition of Standards for Cellular Therapy Services),
- placed to serve as a Mentor for Cellular Therapy, Professional Engagement Program (PEP),
- member of two subsections of the AABB Cellular Therapies Section,
- a student mentor for Imperial College University of Medicine in London for the year 2018-2021.
- advisory panel of Parents' guide to Cord Blood, USA.
- advocacy Ambassador at NMDP/Be The Match at the state of Michigan.
- a Health Sector Member of New Democracy and a Health Tourism Sector Member.
Her biography was included in the Marquis Who's Who of the world for the years 2014, 2015 & 2018, Marquis Who's Who in America 2016, Marquis Who's Who in Science and Engineering 2017 and in May 2017 had received the 'Who's Who' (Marquis) 2017 Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award.
She received the experienced "Shining Star" award, AABB PEP Program, 2017, the AABB PEP Volunteer of the Year Award for 2018, she is the AABB PEP International Ambassador, a TEDx Speaker & a Skill Mentor at EUvsVirus for 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic and in October 2020 she received the AABB President’s Award for her work in cellular therapy and as a mentor, (first award that was given to a non-American recipient). She was also made Clinical Reviewer of the Year by Select Science: Scientists' Choice Awards 2021 .
She is on the editorial board and a reviewer in several scientific international journals as well as a board member in scientific organising committees for medical conferences worldwide.
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