Foundation Office
Your contact person on site

Born in Neubrandenburg in May 1979, I spent my childhood and youth in Crimmitschau. After graduating from high school and completing a voluntary social year at the DRK Crimmitschau Social Welfare Center, I began training as a medical assistant in a surgical practice in 1998. My husband’s job took us to Dresden in 2001, where we lived and worked for several years. After the birth of our son, we returned to our home town, where we now live together with our child and dog.

My professional career spans more than 19 years, during which I have worked in various areas of the healthcare sector, gaining valuable specialist knowledge and extensive practical experience.

Since June 2019, I have been employed by the Vigdis Thomson Foundation as a Study Nurse under the direction of the Foundation Board. My responsibilities include the independent collection and documentation of study-relevant data in preparation for subsequent analysis. I am also available to patients as a central point of contact for all questions and ensure that they receive comprehensive information and support.

Since March 2023, I have also held the position of Foundation Manager. In this role, I am responsible for the organizational and administrative aspects of the foundation and actively support its further development.

It is a great pleasure for me to be part of this dedicated team and to be able to make a valuable contribution.

Contact: sw@v-t-f.org

Contact person for North America

I was born in 1957 in the small town of Rockenhausen, Rhineland Palatinate. After my high school education my interest in languages led me to be trained as a secretary of foreign languages in Kaiserslautern. During a prolonged stay in Spain to further my knowledge of the Spanish language I met Angelika Klammer, at the time a medical student, and we have been close friends since 1979.

I was offered a position with a newly founded German industrial machine distributor in the United States and moved to the Chicagoland area in 1982 where I have lived since, still working for that same company.

Through Angelika Klammer I as well met Jan-Peter Warnke in 1996 and was able to follow both their dedication to the medical field, and in particular their studies and exploration of the complications of the spinal cord diseases. Based on personal medical experience I can relate to be in a situation where answers are hard to find, where diagnoses differ, where information is scarce and where one feels helpless.

It was in 2016 when Dr. Angelika Klammer and Prof. Dr. Jan-Peter Warnke asked me whether I would be interested to serve as a volunteer for the yet to be established Vigdis Thompson Foundation community with my language abilities, a call that I gladly pursue as I strongly believe in the goal and purpose of the foundation.