Mehrnoosh Rayner is Head of Alumni Relations at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) — an intergovernmental life sciences institute with six sites across Europe and support from more than 30 countries, including the UK.

Over the past 20+ years, she has built EMBL Alumni Relations from a small project into a strategic programme that plays a central role in delivering EMBL’s mission to support life sciences in Europe and beyond. Her work now increasingly focuses on alumni fundraising, both to advance EMBL’s initiatives and to demonstrate the power of alumni engagement as a driver for institutional growth. She has also helped emerging life science institutes establish their own alumni relations programmes and is passionate about developing the advancement sector across Europe through knowledge-sharing and collaboration.

Mehrnoosh has worked in higher education for over 30 years, leading stakeholder engagement, designing and growing programmes, and overseeing conferences, events, publications, and data management.

Prior to joining EMBL, she worked at the University of Edinburgh, where she graduated with an MA Honours degree and was later awarded a PhD.

Mehrnoosh is currently Chair of the CASE Europe Council.

Tristan is currently the Deputy Director of Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving at Durham University and is responsible for both the strategic and operational delivery of key integrated activities including events, communications, volunteering and annual giving to a global alumni community of over 200,000 alumni and supporters. With over 17 years extensive business experience of alumni and corporate relations, fundraising, business development, international recruitment, communications, marketing, sales and customer led service provision, Tristan has held senior management roles both in the UK and Australia and brings a global perspective from over a decade of international stakeholder engagement. Tristan is a passionate supporter of, and long standing volunteer to CASE and is focused on enhancing the Advancement profession through mentoring, the sharing of best practice and ideas and networking with colleagues across the world.

Anita’s 19-year career in advancement began at the University of Aberdeen as a student caller. Upon graduating, Anita joined the Development team at Aberdeen during their £150 million Capital Campaign, with responsibility for the regular giving programme. 

In 2010 Anita left her role as Head of Annual Giving and joined the University of Salford as Alumni Relations and Regular Giving Manager, where she was responsible for implementing the alumni relations strategy and moving the telephone campaign in-house.  

In January 2014 Anita joined the University of Liverpool as Head of Alumni and Supporter Relations, before being promoted in 2019 to her current role of Associate Director of Alumni Engagement & Regular Giving leading the alumni engagement and regular giving strategy for the University's 222,000 global alumni community. 

Ross Munnelly was appointed the first Director of Alumni Relations at Dublin City University in July 2017. Over a 18 year period, Ross has worked in a number of roles at the university including Student Recruitment, the Careers Service and Head of Sports Development. He now manages the domestic and international engagement programme for over 110,000 Alumni worldwide.

He is a four time graduate of DCU, some of his qualifications include an MSc in Education and Training (e-Learning), Graduate Diploma in Guidance and Counseling and most recently the Executive MBA (2020).

Thanks to so many loyal volunteers and strategic collaborations, engagement programmes at DCU have received two awards from the Learning and Development Institute of Ireland in recent years. The awards were for the Graduate to Student Mentorship Programme (2018) and the Emerging Leaders Programme (2024).

In addition to his role leading the Alumni Service at DCU, Ross served the university as Acting Joint Head of Student Recruitment at DCU from 2020-2022 and held the position of National Secretary for the Irish Guidance Counselors Association from 2021-2023.

Ross has been a volunteer with the CASE Alumni Relations Institute since 2021.