NTCenter's Sofia Team
NTCenter was founded in 1999 and from the very start it has been a flexi-structure organisation with a small core team and a larger periphery with bespoke teams with niche expertise or cross-disciplinary teams activated as the organisation grows and develops. Twenty-five years later, recognising the value and potential of our research and business partnerships, we formally established an International Expert Advisory Panel as a strategic research advisory body.
Andy Stoycheff, MBA, Director and Senior Researcher
Andy is a founder and director of NTCenter. He is an experienced teacher and educator and his primary focus is on applied research in cognitive layers and vectors of disinformation, media and information literacy, irregular warfare and hybrid threats. He works on data-based and science-based solutions to emerging social challenges using insights from cognitive science, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, psychophysiology, and evolutionary biology.
In charge of the day-to-day management of the company, Andy is also the engine behind the living and evolving construct of strategic projects and priority activities. He sets the development pathways and manages NTCenter's strategic partnerships and relationships. He is a graduate of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and has a teaching qualification from Sofia University.
Dr. Milena Koleva-Zvancharova, Senior Researcher
Milena's professional focus is on projects related to cultural heritage and cultural heritage management. She is a national contact point (NCP) for Bulgaria for Cluster 2 (Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society) of the Horizon Europe programme. Milena engages in projects from the concept stage, and works all the way through development and implementation, with particular emphasis on research activities. She tracks and studies funding opportunities and matches such opportunities to the organisation's strategic directions. Milena is a graduate of Sofia University where she also received her PhD.
Dr. Vladimir Pachemanov, Senior Researcher
Vlad’s interests lie in the field of 19th- and 20th-century philosophy, the historical development of ideas, and the emergence and resolution of contradictions within our practices and institutions. He is an assistant in the History of Philosophy Department in the Faculty of Philosophy at Sofia University and works on developing and modernising teaching techniques. His research focuses on innovative methods for fostering critical thinking, media and information literacy, and dialectics as an approach to addressing contradictions in various social contexts. He also examines different types of reactions to cognitive challenges, including issues related to the awareness, acknowledgement, and resolution of conflicting or hard-to-reconcile positions.
Raya Rankova, Junior Researcher
Raya is а Junior Researcher with NTCenter focusing on psychology and linked domains. She is involved in addressing problems and issues pertaining to the education and training systems and to employing applied research and data. She helps to analyse and understand their underlying causes and the factors involved. Raya works closely with the teams which develop and test practical solutions, including eye-tracking technology in measuring bodily response to disinformation-related stimuli. She is a graduate of the University of Cologne in Germany and is currently doing further graduate studies in Education Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
Hristo Marinov, Junior Researcher
Gergana Pencheva, Administrative Officer
Geri is the Administrative Officer of the company. She deals with the daily running of the office and coordinates all administrative functions. She also provides back-office technical support to all projects and initiatives in which NTCenter is involved, she monitors and coordinates task schedules and bookkeeping, and is actively involved in the execution of dissemination plans and social media outreach.
Valentina Ilieva, Intern
Valya has been an intern with NTCenter since the summer of 2025. She is a student at the American College in Sofia. Valya is a competitive dancer and is interested in psychology. She helps with planning and implementing the media literacy initiatives, including video production, and with source-checking and verification for research in cognitive science. She wants to learn about human behaviour and how we can explain it.
NTCenter's Task Force on Life, Universe and Everything
The Task Force specialises in rapid expert capacity deployment for fast-emerging and fast-evolving in-situ research cases. Our Sofia office currently employs 3 associates, collectively providing 11 paws, 2 tails, all operating autonomously.
Plus
Plus is a very, very special girl. Humans have not been kind to her as a kitten. She was found helpless and with her front leg neurologically severed. The doctors had to amputate and after a long recovery, she was ready for adoption. We immediately named her Plus, as we vowed to never allow her missing limb to be a minus for her in her life with us. Plus is kind and loving, but it seems nothing can erase the horrors of her early childhood and she is terrified every time a human attempts to approach or touch her unexpectedly. She needs to come to you on her own time and pace, and once in your arms, she trusts you completely.
Puppesh
Puppesh is our little adventurer. Playful, doing mischief at every possible opportunity, he often ends up trying very hard to look innocent. Puppesh and his siblings were found by the dumpster, shivering, in a sealed cardoard box. They all survived, but the viral infection impacted his growth and he remained, physically, about the size of a 3-4 month kitten. The size was never going to be an obstacle for this gentleman, and he consistently outperforms in mischief!
τ (Tau)
As a kitten, Tau has had a brief, but life-changing encounter with a big dog. She ended up in the shelter's clinic with severe wounds to her backside and hind legs. Her tail was hanging by the skin. Doctors had to amputate and she recovered slowly, very slowly and at times with worrying prognosis related to the neurological damage to the spine. Tau spent almost 3 years in the clinic and one more year in foster care, before she found her forever home with us. She is a cuddle expert and enjoys spending her days high up, or with nose pressed against the large windows, keeping a watchful eye on the world below.
NTCenter's Expert Advisory Panel
In 2024, we formally established an Expert Advisory Panel - a body of experts, academics and researchers with whom we have been working together closely. We place a very high value on their partnership, support and advice. The Panel is established as a small community based on trust and integrity that goes both ways and is as much professional as it is personal.
Membership of the panel is by invitation only. Members are selected for their expertise and exceptional standing, and they contribute frank opinions, guidance, advice and assessments, without necessarily holding a position with NTCenter. This is how we gather a range of perspectives from specialists and consolidate knowledge for better decision-making and strategy development.
The Expert Advisory Panel has a small core of permanent members, and we invite an additional layer of members as we enter and develop new domains that require more diverse expertise, and as we consider in detail the available research and our contribution to emerging or developing professional challenges. The Panel is convened on an ad hoc basis and sessions may include all members or a selection of members, where we focus on considering more sector-specific or topic-specific matters.
Dr. Ralitsa Kovacheva
Dr Ralitsa Kovacheva is an Associate Professor in International Journalism at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. Her research interests include international politics, EU media coverage, and EU-related issues. In recent years, she devoted her research efforts to the problems of foreign disinformation and propaganda and their influence in Bulgaria. In 2020, she developed the course “Fake News and Disinformation” for the Faculty`s Master programmes. Ralitsa Kovacheva has been a journalist for almost 30 years.
Dr. Zeynep Cemalcılar
Zeynep Cemalcılar (PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 2002) is a professor at the Department of Psychology at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey. She studies social psychological theories and issues as processes applied to real-world situations, with the most recent research on the role of technology in social life, youth autonomy and self-sufficiency, cultural differences and brief social psychological interventions. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Social Interactions and Media Lab at Koç University, an interdisciplinary lab which serves as a platform for studying social interactions and mediated communication, drawing insights from social psychology, communication, and policy perspectives.
Dr. Lemi Baruh
Lemi Baruh (PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication, 2007) is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland, Australia, and an Honorary Associate Professor at the Department of Media and Visual Arts at Koç University, Turkey. He is also the co-founder of the Social Interaction and Media Lab at Koç University, Istanbul. His research covers a range of topics in emerging media, policy-making, and media psychology, including the impact of social media on interpersonal attraction, privacy in online environments, and the role of misinformation and conspiracy theories in health communication.
Dr. Tolga Etgü
Tolga Etgü (PhD, University of California at Berkeley, 2002) has been the chair of the Department of Mathematics at Nazarbayev University since 2023. Previously, he was a professor at Koç University and had visiting positions at Princeton University, Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, and McMaster University. His primary research is in pure math areas including low dimensional topology, symplectic and contact geometry, symplectic cohomology, and Heegaard Floer theory. He has recently been interested in computational social science.
Dr. Haydée De Loof
Dr. Haydée De Loof (PhD, University of Antwerp, 2019) is the Head of the research centre Future-Driven Education at Karel de Grote University College of Applied Sciences and Arts, Antwerp, Belgium. Throughout her career as an educational researcher, she has focused on optimising education and creating the best learning opportunities. She holds a Master's degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Ghent. After completing her doctorate in educational sciences, she has coordinated and designed various research projects. A key consideration in her work has been the valorisation of educational research, ensuring that people truly benefit from research insights.
Dr. Nelson Ribeiro Jorge
(Business Development Sub-Panel)
Dr. Nelson Jorge (PhD, Universidade Aberta, 2016) started exploring the world of online education in 2005 at Universidade de Coimbra, and later completed a Master's in eLearning Pedagogy at Universidade Aberta (2009), where he investigated the role of context and content in virtual learning environments. For his PhD in Distance Education and eLearning he investigated the use of augmented reality in online healthcare education. Nelson is highly specialized in the design and development of digital learning strategies, programmes and courses. He is CEO of DDL - Delft Digital Learning, Senior Instructional Designer at the European Commission, and Assistant Professor at Iscte-IUL in Sintra, Portugal.
Dr. Nicoleta Corbu
Nicoleta Corbu (PhD, SNSPA Bucharest, 2009) is Vice-Rector of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania. She currently coordinates, as an executive director, the Center for Research in Communication. She is Vice-Chair of ECREA Political Communication section. She is the recipient of a Fulbright grant (University of Georgia, USA, 2008-2009) and was visiting professor at Florida Gulf Coast University (2012). She coordinates and participates in strategic and research grants, covering disinformation, political communication, education policies, and media effects.
Dr. Eng. Kateřina Nevřalová
(Business Development Sub-Panel)
Eng. Kateřina Nevřalová, DBA, holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Silesian University and completed postgraduate studies (DBA) at the Essential College in Brno. Her rigorous thesis examined the inclusion of vulnerable youth in the labour market, shaping her long-standing focus on social inclusion. She founded Euroface Consulting s.r.o. in 2005 and co-founded the non-profit InErudico in 2016 to expand her work in the social sphere. Katerina has extensive experience with EU- and ESF-funded projects fostering equal opportunities, ICT innovation in education, and career counselling for disadvantaged groups.