EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION ON HEALTH

We contribute to the development of knowledge and to the exchange of information in the field of health, enhancing a proper communication.

FONDAZIONE ZOÉ

Fondazione Zoé - Zambon Open Education was established in 2008 by the Zambon family, with a focus on health communication and the aim to promote a modern culture of well-being and quality of life, based on the principles of knowledge, awareness and information.

The Foundation organises conferences, seminars, educational activities in the areas of Vicenza and Bresso (Milan) and realizes publications to talk about health, through forms of communication and engagement that are effective and accessible to the general public.

There are three recurring main events, in Vicenza: Brain Awareness Week in March and Gli Orizzonti della Salute (Health Horizons) in October; and in Bresso, the annual program Il Respiro di Oxy.gen (Oxy.gen’s breath).

The year-round educational program ends with the Vivere sani, Vivere bene online (Living healthy, living good online) series of webinar, which tackles topics linked to current health issues with the help of main players.

Zoé also promotes the Human Touch Academy and Home Care Design for Parkinson’s Disease projects, based on a philosophy that looks at the human dimension and relationships as a means of care, as well as Future by Quality, which explores the importance of life sciences to the economic and cultural context of Italy.

"Only the enlargement of our scientific cognitions and the tireless study of all social  and organizational issues enable us to rise above the mediocrity and become really useful and almost indispensable."

Gaetano Zambon, 7th July 1938

PEOPLE

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BOARD MEMBERS
Chiara Zambon 
Margherita Zambon
Peter Heilbron
Giovanni Dolcetta Capuzzo
Veronica Marzotto Notarbartolo
David Giuseppe Ingrassia

PRESIDENT

Elena Zambon

Scientific Committee

Maria Luisa Gorno Tempini

Behavioural neurologist with a PhD in neuroscience, she currently manages the Language and Neurobiology Laboratory at MAC – Memory and Aging Center at the University of San Francisco California, where she is a Professor. Her work investigates the neural basis of higher cognitive functions such as language and memory. She has extensive experience in neurology and neuroscience and in the use of behavioural paradigms and neuroimaging to study language symptoms and their neural mechanisms.

Sergio Pecorelli

A physician specialising in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Pelvic Surgery. He was Director of the Obstetrics and Gynaecological Clinic at the University of Brescia for many years. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the same university, where he was also Rector from 2010 to 2016, and Adjunct Professor at Yale School of Medicine. He was President of the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) from 2009 to 2015 and representative of the Italian Government in Brussels for innovative programmes for active and healthy ageing.

Giuseppe Varchetta

An organisational psychologist with psycho-socio-analytical training, as well as founding member and former president of Ariele. After a considerable amount of experience in the areas of training, organisational development and personnel management, he became Adjunct Professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca, where he works as an expert in the subject.

Stefano Bertuzzi

Bertuzzi has been Chief Executive Officer of the American Society for Microbiology - ASM since 2015, one of the largest international scientific organisations in the field of Life Sciences, with over 30,000 members and activities in 122 countries. Its mission is to promote and advance microbiology. Recently, he guided the efforts of the ASM in dealing with the pandemic, working directly with the White House COVID-19 Task Force, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) to increase access to diagnostic tools for coronavirus. He works intensively as an author and science communicator and has gained extensive policy experience as Senior Scientific Executive at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in the Office of the NIH Director. He led negotiations with the EU on reciprocal investments between the NIH and EU on behalf of the US government and worked with the White House during the Obama administration to optimise the benefits of investments in scientific research.

Laura Ferrari

After graduating in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Milan and doing a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brown University in Providence, USA, in 1981 Ferrari joined the IRCCS Foundation Cancer Institute in Milan as a Contract Researcher. Over the years, she has taken on increasing responsibility, in 2018 becoming Acting Director of the S.C. Day Hospital/Cancer Outpatient Unit, where, among her other roles, she manages and supervises the Medical Day Hospital oncohaematology department for conventional and experimental treatments, with over 25,000 patients looked after every year. A lecturer at the University of Milan from 2005 to 2017, she authored and co-authored over 90 scientific publications, book chapters and abstracts.

Team

David Ingrassia
Secretary General
Rita Larocca
Program Advisor
Chiara Bisin
Operational Manager
Erika Tibaldo
Event Manager & Administration

Volunteers

The accomplishment of the activities is also possible thanks to the valuable contribution of the Vicenza and Bresso “Volunteer Teams”, two affiliated teams comprising a core group of people who previously worked for Zambon and have since retired, but who wanted to give some of their time to the Foundation’s activities. Over time, other people of various ages and backgrounds have joined these teams, who provide organisational support to all the initiatives with their generosity and enthusiasm. Currently there are more than 100 volunteers involved in these activities.