Interviews

15 11, 2025

London, Brussels, Luxembourg and back: An interview with our 1977-1978 Alumnus Christopher Vajda

Francesca Spinelli2026-09-03T13:42:36+02:0015 November 2025|

Christopher Vajda QC, Monckton Chambers (photo credit: Nick Strugnell). Christopher Vajda was among the many British Wiener-Anspach Fellows who came to Brussels in the 1970s to study European law. He would never have imagined that one day he would become the last British judge to sit in [...]

15 11, 2024

Love, explore, communicate: An interview with our 1999-2000 Alumna Ann Vaessen

Francesca Spinelli2026-09-03T13:41:20+02:0015 November 2024|

Ann Vaessen (centre) in Cambridge, 1999. A media specialist at the The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Ann Vaessen was first pushed to go beyond her limits during her Wiener-Anspach fellowship at the University of Cambridge, where she completed an MPhil in European Literature [...]

15 11, 2023

Pollen, carnivores, and all things ecology: An interview with our 2006-2007 Alumna Terry Brncic

Francesca Spinelli2026-09-03T13:39:51+02:0015 November 2023|

Terry Brncic collecting pollen surface samples from Lake Tumba (DRC), 2007. In love with Africa since her adolescence, Terry Brncic was a Wiener-Anspach postdoctoral fellow in paleoecology in 2006-2007 at the Université libre de Bruxelles, where she worked with botanist Jean Lejoly. Today she is Deputy Director [...]

15 11, 2022

In the company of French thinkers : An interview with our 2014-2016 Alumnus Paul Earlie

Francesca Spinelli2026-09-03T13:38:09+02:0015 November 2022|

A Wiener-Anspach Postdoctoral Fellow at the Université libre de Bruxelles from 2014 to 2016, Paul Earlie had the invaluable opportunity to work with late Belgian philosopher Michel Meyer (1950-2022), to whom he pays a vibrant homage. This interview was first published in our 2022 Activity Report. What sparked your [...]

15 11, 2021

Exploring the wonders of carnivals: An interview with our 2012-2013 Alumna Clémence Mathieu

Francesca Spinelli2026-09-03T13:35:37+02:0015 November 2021|

Photo: Frédéric Raevens A strong academic background, including a year of postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge, made Clémence Mathieu an ideal resource for the International Carnival and Mask Museum in Binche. Since 2017, she has been running this unique institution in the world. This interview [...]

15 11, 2020

The importance of being eclectic: An interview with our 1985-1986 Alumnus Peter Coveney

Francesca Spinelli2026-09-03T13:33:00+02:0015 November 2020|

In 1985 Peter Coveney came to the ULB to work with Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine, from whom he acquired an interdisciplinary approach to scientific research. He now leads several projects in the field of supercomputing and has developed what he calls a “Brexit mitigation strategy“. This interview was first [...]

15 11, 2019

The art of communicating art: An interview with our 1994-1995 Alumna Danièle Reiber

swingFwaAdmin2026-09-03T13:31:58+02:0015 November 2019|

Danièle Reiber is the founder and director of Reiber PR, a public relations company operating in the arts world. She graduated from the ULB, but her passion for musicology – together with a Wiener-Anspach fellowship in 1994-1995 – made her cross the Channel over twenty years ago. This interview [...]

20 05, 2018

When science meets commitment: An interview with our 2001-2002 Alumnus Jonathan Mboyo Esole

swingFwaAdmin2026-09-03T13:30:27+02:0020 May 2018|

Jonathan Mboyo Esole was born in the Congo and he studied at the ULB and Cambridge. He is now Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Northeastern University. In March 2018 he received the Next Einstein Award, recognising Africa’s best young scientists and technologists. Alongside his academic activity, [...]

15 11, 2017

Entrepreneur at heart: An interview with our 2012-2013 Alumna Victoria van Lennep

Francesca Spinelli2026-09-04T12:10:23+02:0015 November 2017|

Victoria van Lennep is the co-founder of Lendable, an online lending platform that harnesses technology and data to make getting a personal loan quick and easy. In 2012-2013, at the time of her Wiener-Anspach fellowship, she had already co-founded GoYoung, an educational tool and series of documentary films profiling [...]

15 11, 2016

The birth of an international legal career: An interview with our 1990-1991 Alumna Ayesha Vardag

swingFwaAdmin2026-09-04T12:12:35+02:0015 November 2016|

Ayesha Vardag is the President and founder of top family law firm Vardags. In 1990-1991 she was granted a Wiener-Anspach fellowship to study at the Université libre de Bruxelles. In this interview, she recalls the racy year she spent in Brussels and explains how it radically influenced her professional [...]

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