Newsletter
Sasha Ivashchenko is the lead guest-editor of this special newsletter edition related to a post-pandemic world. As a member of the MCAA Editorial Team, her priority is to involve as many MCAA members as possible and to ensure communications reach all members and beyond.
Sasha Ivashchenko,
in her own words
I’m an imaging medical physicist, completing my Radiology and Nuclear Medicine residency at the Leiden University Medical Center and combining this with a part-time research position at the Netherlands Cancer Institute - Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital.
I was born and raised in Ukraine. However, after obtaining my university degree in Applied Physics and gaining a few years of work experience, I moved to the Netherlands to work on a PhD project in Delft (TU Delft, 2013-2015, ITN TRACE 'n TREAT, FP7).
Sasha had the opportunity to work on her MSCA project through an Innovative Training Network (ITN). Looking back on this experience, she says: “Our personal development budget and the number of courses we could follow could not be compared with a standard PhD track,” she explains.
Eager to continue her Marie Curie journey, she joined the MCAA and its Communication Working Group. One of her goals is to raise awareness about the association among the community of former MSCA fellows. “The amount of resources and the help that MCAA is providing to former fellows is unbelievable – there are MCAA micro-grants, workshops and communication platforms, for instance. Yet not everyone is aware of the organisation and its resources. Together with the Communication Working Group, we are trying to change this.”
As a member of the Editorial Board, Sasha is involved in a variety of tasks involved in the production of both the newsletter and the magazine. “I contribute to discussion of issues like brainstorming and production of timelines, review of articles. I also write a few articles per year myself,” explains Sasha. “Making a newsletter takes a lot of effort. There is a lot of communication between the authors, the editors and the production team involved, but it is a great team and we all jump in.”
Sasha is particularly proud of the newsletter dedicated to diversity published last year. “It was co-edited by Gian Maria Greco and Valerie Bentivegna and was a huge success, especially because thematic issues resonate much more with our members, they speak to our hearts,” she says.
Sasha is one of the two guest editors of this issue dedicated to a post-pandemic world. “The issue reflects on how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives, changes that have been incorporated into researchers' everyday lives and are here to stay, the lessons we have learned and the ways we want and need to move forward. I am very proud of it. I'm proud of every newsletter we publish," she adds.
Aurélia Chaise
MCAA Editorial Team
