I grew up in Eger in Hungary and received my general medicine degree at the Debrecen Medical School (DOTE) in 1985, followed by a 5-year residency and certification in internal medicine. My academic research work brought me to Oxford, UK as a postgraduate research fellow, resulting in the successful defense of my PhD thesis in clinical immunology in 1990. Shortly after I switched career and joined the international pharmaceutical industry which was in its infancy in Hungary at that time. In the subsequent almost 30 years I have primarily worked in global clinical drug development with increasing responsibilities, and at varied locations. I met my Dutch husband through my pharma work.

With my family we moved to Indianapolis in 2002. My son, Mark, who was born in Budapest, was 4 years old at that time. The relocation to the US and the multi-lingual background our family played a significant role in my critical approach to continue to nurture and maintain the Hungarian language and culture in our family. The “weight” of this commitment hit me first, when I started to teach my son to read-and-write in Hungarian, literally in a competition with his parallel learning in English and Spanish at kindergarten and lower school. Following the heroic efforts over the years (in the absence of a Hungarian school in Indianapolis), I can proudly say now, that my university student son is fluent in Hungarian, and his Hungarian background plays an important role in his identity.

Further to teaching my son in Hungarian, I was constantly seeking to be involved with Hungary related opportunities and events in Indiana, Chicago and Michigan. When we moved to Boston in 2016, I was really pleased to discover the Hungarian Society of Massachusetts. The HSM has represented a convergent, versatile and very active Hungarian society to me that I really missed during our years in the Mid-West. I immediately started to attend many of the programs and events organized by the society (including the Science Club, Disznotoros evening, Spring Ball etc.), and have also been gradually involved in the organization and support of some of the events and fund raising. As past communication manager and photographer of Boskola, I documented many of the events of the school in the past few years. Through these interactions, I have grown close to the association and since March 2020, I am acting as Secretary of the HSM Board.

I believe that as a Board member, I can further expand my contribution to the society and help and support to maintain the Hungarian language and culture in Massachusetts. This is also the reason why I am gladly representing HSM at the Hungarian American Coalition (HAC).