Senior researchers from the University of Antwerp
Prof. Dr. Karolien Poels
Starting in the field of advertising research and emotions, her research has developed in wider, mainly ICT areas with a focus on online advertising and social media. Karolien studies how individuals use and experience ICT and how these insights can be applied by organisations for persuasive communication (advertising, health promotion, corporate communication) and their relations with consumer/user protection and empowerment. The role of emotions in communication and how they interact with cognitive processes and behavior is still central in her research interest and inspiration. She teaches about these topics at both the bachelor and master level.
Currently, Karolien is actively involved in research on online (commercial) media environments and 'complex' communication: adolescents’ advertising literacy towards targeted online advertising (PhD Brahim Zarouali, 2018), online ad tailoring: the role of acceptance and privacy concerns (PhD Evert Van den Broeck, 2019), transparency and effectiveness in the implementation of native advertising (PhD Simone Krouwer, 2020), sustainable advertising strategies for online news media (PhD’s Dorien Luyckx and Luc De Cleir, ongoing), food advertising and online communication strategies (PhD’s Katrien Maldoy and Paulien Decorte, ongoing). Another line of research involves persuasive technologies (serious games, reflective interfaces,...) to tackle online transgressive behavior or promote healthy (coping) behavior: a serious game promoting positive bystander involvement in cyberbullying (PhD Sara Bastiaensens, 2016), automatic monitoring of sexual harassment on social media (PhD Kathleen Van Royen, 2017), online personal narratives and interface design targeted at adolescents' mental wellbeing (PhD Sofie Mariën, ongoing) and persuasive context-based health communication (PhD Michelle Symons, ongoing).
Karolien is one of the founders and directors of the Antwerp Social Lab which focuses on psychophysiological and behavioral methods that capture human interactions in interpersonal and mediated contexts. https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/onderzoeksgroep/antwerp-social-lab/
From 2013-2018 Karolien was a board member of the Young Academy of Flanders. She is also a co-founder of DiGRA Flanders. Since February 2020, Karolien serves as the president of NeFCA (Netherlands-Flanders Communication Association): https://nefca.eu.
Karolien Poels is associate editor of Behaviour & Information Technology (IF: 1.429), one of the leading journals on the human side of technology.
Related to the industry, Karolien is a regular expert for Vlaio (mainly KMO projects with communication/advertising/marketing/gaming related topics).
Prof. Dr. Heidi Vandebosch
Heidi Vandebosch (°1971) holds a master’s degree in communication sciences. She received a PhD in social sciences from the K.U.Leuven (1999) for her dissertation entitled “A Captive Audience: The Media Use of Prisoners.” After her PhD, she was awarded a postdoctoral grant from the Research Council of the K.U.Leuven (1999-2000) and from the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (2000-2004). In 2004, she became an assistant professor at the University of Antwerp.
Currently, Heidi Vandebosch is a full professor in the Department of Communication Studies and a senior member of the research group MIOS. Since 2005, most of her research has focused on cyberbullying (prevalence, profiles of bullies and victims, impact, evidence-based interventions, the role of schools, the police and (news) media) and related online risks (online sexual harassment, sexting, hate speech, celebrity bashing). Apart from this, Heidi Vandebosch is involved in the development of (technological) evidence-based health interventions related to food consumption and physical activity.
Heidi Vandebosch teaches the courses Introduction to Communication Studies (1BA), Media: Audiences and Effects (2BA) and Health Communication (MA). She is internationally active. She was member of the MC of COST action IS0801 (“Cyberbullying: coping with negative and enhancing positive uses of new technologies, in relationships in educational settings”) and coordinator of WP4 of the Marie Curie Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) “HealthNar”. Currently, Heidi Vandebosch is involved in COST-action CA18115 (“Transnational Collaboration on Bullying, Migration and Integration at School Level). Furthermore, Heidi Vandebosch is part of the NeFCA board (co-chairing the Health Communication Division) and book review editor of “Communications. The European Journal of Communication Research”. She was also elected as member of the Academia Europeae.
Dr. Kathleen Van Royen
In 2017, she obtained her PhD in Communication Sciences at the University of Antwerp. The focus of her dissertation was on automatic monitoring sexual harassment of adolescents on social media. After her PhD, she worked in the field of health promotion at the Flemish Institute for Healthy Living (Brussels). In 2018, she returned to the academic world, first as a research manager and since 2020 as post-doc researcher. Most of her research currently involves health literacy and health risk communication towards vulnerable populations. Kathleen is also actively involved as part time post-doc researcher in the InFlOOD research project. She has not collaborated yet with the (food) industry.
Dr. Sara Pabian
Sara Pabian (Ph.D.) is a halftime Assistant Professor and halftime Postdoc Researcher at the Department of Communication Studies, research group MIOS (Media, ICT, and Interpersonal Relations In Organisations and Society) at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). She obtained her PhD in Communication Sciences at the University of Antwerp in 2015.
The focus of her dissertation was on adolescent perpetrators of cyberbullying. She has worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher, funded by a personal mandate from the Research Fund For Scientific Research – Flanders (FWO), at the University of Antwerp from 2015 until 2019 on the topic of long-term outcomes of cyberbullying victimization. She has combined this mandate with an appointments as guest professor at the KU Leuven (academic year 2015 – 2016). Starting from October 1, 2017, she is a halftime Assistant Professor at the University of Antwerp where she teaches three courses that are related to strategic communication and she supervises master theses. Her FWO postdoc mandate ended on September 30, 2019. Starting from October 1, 2019, she is a halftime Postdoc Researcher on the InFlOOD research project. She has not collaborated yet with the (food) industry.
Dr. Gaëlle Ouvrein
Gaëlle Ouvrein (Ph.D) is a Postdoc researcher funded by the Research Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO) and part time guest professor at the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Antwerp and KU Leuven (Belgium). Gaëlle conducts her research within the research group MIOS (Media, ICT, and Interpersonal Relations In Organisations and Society) at the University of Antwerp. She also obtained her PhD in Communication Sciences there in 2019.
The focus of her research is on online celebrity bashing, which refers to all kinds of online aggression and insults towards famous people online. Her dissertation and postdoc research focus on the three different types of involvement in celebrity bashing: as a bystander, as a perpetrator and as a celebrity-victim. She mostly investigates this among an adolescent sample. Gaëlle is also involved in the InFLOOD research project, whereby she supervises the work of dra. Amber Peeters about meat and masculinity. She has not collaborated yet with the (food) industry.
Senior researchers from Ghent University
Dr. Liselot Hudders
Liselot Hudders (°1983) got a Communication Sciences degree (2005) and PhD in Communication Sciences (2011) (Ghent University, Belgium). She worked as part-time guest professor at Antwerp University between 2012 and 2015 and as a post-doctoral researcher at Ghent University. In October 2015, she started working at Ghent University as tenure track professor in the Dept. of Communication sciences. In addition, she is post-doctoral fellow of the FWO (2015-2021) at the Department of Marketing, Innovation and Management (Ghent University) on a project on the effects of influencer marketing.
Since 2012, she is director of the Center for Persuasive Communication, which unites a team of 25 researchers who are conducting research on the effectiveness of persuasive communication in a profit and nonprofit context. Her research focuses on the effects of digital marketing tactics, with a special focus on how children and youngsters respond to embedded and integrated advertising. An important research line concerns influencers marketing. She currently guides two PhD researchers and one post-doctoral researcher who are all working on the effectiveness of influencer marketing to endorse brands and promote a sustainable lifestyle. In addition, she examines how this tactic can be used in an ethical and transparent way by examining the effects of adding a clear advertising disclosure to sponsored content. Additionally, she examines how these digital marketing tactics can be used to raise awareness and incite people to consume more sustainable. She guides two PhD students examining how social media can be used to promote meat reduction and a sustainable energy use. In addition, she guides a post-doc researcher who is examining the effects of nudges to affect sustainable consumption practices. She currently supervises 14 Phd students and three post-doc researchers and her research is currently funded by Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk onderzoek (FWO), internal Ugent funding, Vlaams Fonds voor Innovatie en Ondernemen (VLAIO), Interreg2seas, the Chinese Scholarship Council, the city of Ghent and the European Advertising Standards Alliance.
Liselot Hudders is a non-funded member of the board of the European Advertising Academy and the persuasive division of Netherlands-Flanders Communication Association. She is member of the editorial board of International Journal of Advertising and the scientific board of the Monaco Luxury Symposium.
Prof. Dr. Maggie Geuens
Maggie Geuens obtained a PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Antwerp in 1998. After working as an Assistant Professor for a few years at the Free University of Brussels and the Vlerick Business School, she joined Ghent University in 2000. Currently she is Professor of Marketing and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Business Economics at Ghent University.
Her main field of research interest is in advertising, branding and consumer behavior. Eight years ago, she refocused her research and together with Iris Vermeir founded a Consumer Behavior Group with a specific focus on encouraging consumers to engage in healthy and sustainable consumer behavior. Maggie collaborated, for example, on research on the extent to which food consumption behavior is impacted by online vs. offline grocery shopping, packaging formats (resealable or not, squeesh tubes or jams), assortment size, assortment sequence, advertising content, nudging in a retail and restaurant context, and health goals. Her research is funded through internal Ghent University funding, Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO), Flemish Government, and Food4Health (EIT Food & EIT Health). Maggie is non-funded senior editor of the International Journal of Research in Marketing, and non-funded member of the editorial board of the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Advertising, and the International Journal of Advertising. She receives royalties form a textbook (Marketing Communications, Pearson Education).
Prof. Dr. Iris Vermeir
Iris Vermeir is associate professor at Ghent University. She obtained her PhD in Applied Economics from Ghent University in 2003. Her research focusses on several aspects of consumer behavior and marketing communication relating to sustainable and healthy consumption. In 2011, she founded a Consumer Behavior Group together with Maggie Geuens with a specific focus on encouraging consumers to engage in healthy and sustainable consumer behavior. She is also head of the research center BE4life ‘behavioral economics for life’, an interdisciplinary Ugent research center that works together on increasing well-being enhancing consumption (i.e. sustainable, healthy and ethical consumption). Iris obtained funding through internal Ghent University and Ghent University College funding, Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO) and the Flemish Government. She has worked with some of Belgian’s largest companies (e.g. Colruyt Group, KBC, …) and the department of Environment of the Flemish Government on projects to promote sustainable consumption. She collaborated on research like the extent to which food consumption behavior is impacted by packaging formats (squeesh tubes or jams) or packaging material (paper or plastic), assortment size, assortment sequence, advertising content and nudging in a retail and restaurant context.
Senior researchers from KU Leuven
Prof. Dr. Christophe Matthys
Christophe Matthys (°1975) is currently associate professor KU Leuven and scientific coordinator of the clinical nutrition unit University Hospitals Leuven. He got a bio-science engineer degree (1998) and PhD in Medical Sciences (2006) (Ghent University, Belgium). Following his appointment at Ghent University he moved to the Institute of Food Sciences and Health, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand where he was appointed as a lecturer. Between April 2009 September 2011, he worked as Senior Scientific Project Manager at ILSI Europe (private sector). Since October 2011 he started working part-time as assistant professor human nutrition at KU Leuven and part-time as scientific coordinator of the Clinical Nutrition Unit, University Hospitals Leuven.
His research focus on both transnutritional care and secondary prevention, while understanding the underlying mechanisms. His scientific vision is to provide scientific evidence through nutrition/food/diet to tackle metabolic imbalance and consider nutrition/food/diet as an adjuvant therapy to the current medical therapy. He co-coordinates a unique academic group that combines pre-clinical and clinical research tools on the interplay of nutrition and different chronic pathologies. Currently Christophe Matthys’ research is funded through internal KU Leuven funding, Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO), Vlaams Fonds voor Innovatie en Ondernemen (VLAIO), Horizon 2020 (EIT Food & EIT Health) and VLIR-UOS. He is chair of the KU Leuven Fund ‘Nutrition’, a donation-based fund to stimulate research on nutrition.
Christophe Matthys is a non-funded member of an advisory board of Smart With Food, AJUNEC, Belgian Health and Nutrition Conference, Instituut Gezond Leven, Vlaamse Beroepsvereniging van Diëtisten, a non-funded board member of the Belgian Nutrition Society and the Flemish Society of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism, non-funded associate editor of Clinical Nutrition ESPEN and Frontiers in Nutrition. Recipient of travel/accommodation expenses and small participation fee (<100€/meeting) as member of working groups of the Belgian Superior Health Council and Belgian Federal Agency of the Safety of the Food Chain. Recipient of travel/accommodation expenses as member of the Scientific Advisory Body of the Joint Programme Initiative Healthy Diet, Healthy Life, as co-chair ILSI Europe Task Force Dietary Intake and Exposure, as member ILSI Europe Task Force Nutrient Intake Optimisation and member of Working Groups of the Eurorpean Food Safety Authority. Recipient of honoraria (<500€/year) as Editor in Chief of Food Science and Law and as active member of the advisory board of NutriNews (Belgian Nutrition Information Center). Recipient of honoraria as jury-member of nutrition-related awards and reviewing EU-grants. Recipient of royalties form a textbook (Handboek Voeding, ACCO). Honoraria are used to support research of PhD Students.
Prof. Dr. Tim Smits
Tim Smits is the current vice-dean of Education for the Faculty of Social Sciences, the former director of the Institute for Media Studies (2014-2019), and the former programme director of the Master in Corporate Communication (2014-2019). With a background in Social Psychology (MSc & PhD), Statistics (MSc), Marketing, Ethics and Communication, he joined the KU Leuven Institute for Media Studies in 2010 as a tenure track professor and he now is a full professor in Persuasion and Marketing Communication at the institute.
Tim published on various topics within these fields, but his main research focus pertains to persuasion and marketing communication dynamics that involve health and/or consumer empowerment and how these are affected by situational differences or manipulations. He also has a more methodological line of research on science replicability. Concerning food, the focus in Tim’s research is predominantly on food marketing and food persuasion among children and adolescents, disentangling the way commercial communication persuades and trying to apply the same persuasive principles to promote healthy and durable consumption and food attitudes.
Tim Smits sometimes provides strategic communication consultancy in the domain of food; consultancy fees are used to support research activities and junior researchers. In this regard, he provided consultancy for the development of new Flemish food recommendation (the food triangle), and for Alpro. He also received a research grant from Alpro Foundation to investigate how social media affect adolescent’s perception of food, both in general and specifically for plant-based foods.
Prof. Dr. Nelleke Teughels
Nelleke Teughels (°1982) obtained a Master's degree in Art History and Archaeology in 2005 (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). In 2006 she became a member of FOST (Social & Cultural Food Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and in September 2011 she defended her dissertation on the advertising strategies of modern food retailing (1867-1940). Between 2012 and 2016 she carried out postdoctoral research for the FWO-Vlaanderen, analyzing the food that was presented and served by the Belgian participants at the world exhibitions in Belgium and abroad between 1851 and 2010 and investigating whether the construction and promotion of a "traditional food culture" was used as an instrument in the legitimation and identity construction of the Belgian nation. In September 2015, she started working as a doctor-assistant at the research group Cultural History since 1750 at KU Leuven, where she taught classes and seminars in the theory and methodology of history. She worked as part-time guest professor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel between 2016 and 2018, were she taught classes in the theory and methodology of history and a course on ‘Food Traditions & Innovations’, which was part of the International Master Program: Food History. Since October 2018, she is working as a postdoctoral researcher on an EOS-project ‘B-Magic. The Magic Lantern and its Cultural Impact as a Visual Mass Medium in Belgium’.
As a member of FOST (Social & Cultural Food Studies), she collaborated with national and international organizations, such as CAG – Centrum voor Agrarische Geschiedenis (KU Leuven), IEHCA – Institut Européen d’Histoire et des Cultures de l’Alimentation (Université de Tours), ICREFH – International Commission for Research into European Food History. Since 2006, she organized several seminars and masterclasses on the history and social and cultural meaning of food, welcoming historians, sociologists, chemists and philosophers. Together with Yves Segers (CAG), she supervises a PhD research into the cultural history of snack foods in the Netherlands. In addition, since 2018 she is editor-in-chief of Contemporanea, the journal of the Belgische Vereniging voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis/Association belge d’Histoire Contemporaine, of which she is the chairwoman. Between 2017 and 2018, she was chair of the History section of the Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis. Since 2012, she is a non-funded member of the scientific advisory board of ETWIE – Expertisecentrum voor Technisch, Industrieel en Wetenschappelijk Erfgoed.
Senior researchers from other institutions
Prof. Dr. Hilde Van den Bulck - Drexel University
Hilde Van den Bulck is a Professor of Communication Studies and Head of the Department of Communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia (PA). She holds an MA in Communication Science from KULeuven (B), an MA in Mass Communication from Leicester University (UK) and a PhD in Social Sciences from KULeuven (B). She starting at Drexel in 2018, after 17 years at Antwerp University (B) where she was a Professor of Communication Studies, Head of Department of Communication, then Associate Dean of Research and later Dean of the Social Sciences.
Hilde Van den Bulck combines expertise in media structure and policies with expertise in media culture. With regards to media culture, she analyses the relationships between media culture(s) and collective (national, ethnic, gender and age-related) identities. In this context, she developed extensive expertise in the analysis of representation of various issues and groups in media content. In the past ten years, she has shifted focus to the role of mediated communication in celebrity culture and the celebrity apparatus, in particular, how celebrities’ ideas, words, and actions provoke mediated debates amongst fans, wider audiences and, in the case of celebrity activism, politicians and policy makers. She has studied these dynamics with regards to various topics, including health, nutrition, dieting, aging and wellbeing, amongst others. She analyzed the framing by media and audiences of heart-related celebrity health issues and of the role of food and dieting in images of aging celebrity bodies. In 2018, Routledge published her book Celebrity Philanthropy and Activism: Mediated Interventions in the Global Public Sphere. The core content of this book is presented in this animated video:
Her work on media structures and policies focuses on the impact of technological, political, economic and cultural processes, especially how digitization and convergence affect legacy media. She specializes in public (service) media in that regard, most recently analyzing how personalization strategies based on algorithms affect (audience attitudes towards) the core public media value of universality and trust. Recently, she was principle editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Methods for Media Policy Research. For 12 years, she was vice chair of the Sectorial Media Council that provides policy advice to the Flemish Media Minister.
Dr. Yandisa Ngqangashe
Dr. Yandisa Ngqangashe has a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy, obtained from Wits University in 2009. She previously has worked as an Occupational Therapist in various sectors of health in South Africa. In 2015, she obtained a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. Following her passion in health promotion and prevention of diet-related non-communicable diseases, she joined the University of Antwerp as a PhD Candidate. In June 2019 she obtained her PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Antwerp. Her research is on the effects of food media on food literacy and how food media can be used to promote positive eating behaviors in adolescents. She has published work on this subject focusing on the nutritional content of foods portrayed by TV cooking shows and the experimental effects of exposure to existing TV cooking shows that endorse fruits and vegetables.