Meet the Executive Board

Barend Mees is a professor of Vascular Repair and Regeneration at Maastricht University Medical Centre in Maastricht. His clinical work and research focus on aortic pathology and peripheral arterial disease, vascular biology and tissue engineering, respectively. He has been involved as arterial course director at EVC since 2020. He also invented the MAZE Box, a hands-on endovascular surgery simulator now used well beyond EVC and Maastricht, and has served as a UEMS FEBVS examiner since 2017.

Marie Josee van Rijn is a vascular surgeon and epidemiologist at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. Her focus is on venous disease, particularly acute and chronic deep venous thrombosis pathology, pursued through research, international collaboration, and writing guidelines. She co-edited the Dutch textbook Phlebology and is section editor at the European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery for the venous, lymphatic, and vascular access papers.

Çağdaş Ünlü is a vascular surgeon at NoordWest Ziekenhuisgroep in Alkmaar. His research centres on peripheral arterial disease, with a particular interest in chronic limb-threatening ischaemia. He leads multiple nationally funded, multi-centre studies, co-authored the revised Dutch national guideline on peripheral arterial disease, and teaches as faculty on the ESVS Academy's advanced endovascular training course.

Together, they steer the European Vascular Course. Their ambition? To build a strong and connected vascular training community across Europe, not just a three-day course.