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The Team
Meet the team!
The "Eye for diabetes" project is managed by several project coordinators and researchers living in Belgium (Europe). The team is multi-disciplinary with various backgrounds in environmental sciences, health, and communication sciences. Here are some of the people who are part of the core team:
Patrick De Boever
Project manager at VITO HEALTH
 | Patrick De Boever was granted the degree of bio-engineer at Ghent University in Belgium. He obtained a PhD degree in applied biological sciences at that same university.He currently works as project manager at the Flemish Institute for Technological Research-VITO in the Health unit. Patrick is responsible for research projects related to preventive medicine and medical technologies. He is team leader for MONA that investigates if eye analysis can be used to detect chronic diseases in an early stage. He also has an appointment as professor at Hasselt University. |
Bart Elen
Principal data scientist at VITO Health
 | Bart has an engineering degree in computer science and electronics (both from K.U.Leuven). After having completed a number of research projects on sensor networks at the K.U.Leuven, Bart has joined the VITO Health unit in 2009. At VITO he leads the MONA deep learning team and creates technological solutions for health challenges faced by our current society. Example realizations include airQmap to map air quality in urban environments and MONA to screen retinal images for diseases. Bart is responsible for the technical realization of the labeling platform of the "Eye for Diabetes" project and coordinates the creation of the deep learning models. |
Jef Van Laer
Science communication manager at Vrije Universiteit Brussel
 | After obtaining his master's degree in History and teaching at a secondary school, Jef discovered his passion for science communication. Since joining the Science Communication team at the VUB in 2011, he has coordinated several outreach projects, including a Science Festival, Science Comedy and the popular science blog wtnschp.be. Jef is responsible for the communication strategy and campaign material of "Eye for diabetes". |
Carina Veeckman
Senior Researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel
 | Carina has a bachelor degree in Communication Management (PR & events, Artevelde, 2006) and a master degree in Communication Sciences (New Media and Society, Ghent University, 2011). Since 2011, she has been working at imec-SMIT-VUB, a research group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Carina has been involved in various citizen science initiatives with a participatory sensing approach, in which she explored the main motivations and barriers for participation of users. Within the project, she is responsible for monitoring the community engagement approach, and for measuring the social impacts of the project. |
Luk Buyse
President Diabetes Liga
 | Dr. Luk Buyse works as general practitioner (KUL, 1989) and sportsphysician (VUB, 2000) in Medisch Huis de Statie, Lauwe and as a sportsphysician at BLITS. Being a member of the board and the commission prevention of the Diabetes Liga for almost 10 years, he is elected as president of the Diabetes Liga in 2018. As a sports physician dr. Buyse is interested in the effects of movement and sports on people with diabetes, and since 6 years he governs the Climbing for Life Diabetes project in which every year around 12 patients with diabetes are trained to perform an important sportsperformance (climbing Stelvio, Alpe d’Huez, Vosges). He’s also member of the projectteam for HALT2Diabetes, a project sponsored by the Flemish Government for early detection and treatment of (risk for) diabetes and cardiovascular disease. |
The Eye for Diabetes Citizen scientists
Without you, we would not be able to achieve what we have reached so far. We want to thank you for your help!!
To give recognition to our participants, we interviewed some of our top contributors. If you like to get to know them better, then click the following link to read their testimonials.
