Description
Barbara holds a PhD in elementary particle physics from VU University Amsterdam and was a member of the LHCb experiment. She developed tracking reconstruction software and performed analysis. For 2 years she was the operation coordinator of the LHCb experiment, where she discovered that she loves project management. When she decided to leave the research field she wanted to change completely and follow her second passion in life: sport. She says: "What maybe could be interesting in my story is that I really challenge the sentence that often we feel in the research field: " physicists can do any job" ”.
Currently she works at UEFA where she is part of the Planning and Services unit in the Football Department, where she is in charge of coordinating all the experts (ranging from legal department to the stadium, to social responsibility, to mobility, to accommodation, to financial matters, etc..) during the bidding process.
She sees many links between her current job and the work she performed as operation coordinator of the entire LHCb experiment. There are many different domains, with experts who have a deep understanding of their part but not an overall view. Her role is to lead them ensuring that the puzzle works perfectly. This requires a lot of knowledge in each domain, quick problem solving, analytical skills to understand, analyse and connect all the pieces and human interaction skills to deal with very different personality and bring the best out of them.
