I am a historian with a diverse background at the intersection of teaching, research and research management. Since the summer of 2020, I am working as a lecturer at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands), where I teach a variety of courses in the section Economic and Social History.
I hold a PhD from the Department of History and Civilization at the European University Institute. I have been a researcher at the EUI from 2013 to 2018. From May 2018 to April 2020 I worked as a research associate at the Leibniz Institute for European History (Mainz, Germany), in the Horizon 2020 project RETOPEA. In that project, I also served as part-time coordinator.
My dissertation focused on the role of the hometown and social background in commercial networks in Early Modern Europe (case of the Florentine merchant community in Antwerp, ca. 1500-1585). (see section ‘research’ for a more extensive discussion of my dissertation). I was supervised by Luca Mola and Regina Grafe, and successfully obtained my PhD in December 2018. Throughout my PhD trajectory, I published a peer reviewed article (see list of publications), and I am currently in the process of writing a set of articles based on my doctoral research, as well as drafting a book proposal. I have presented parts of my doctoral research at conferences and workshops in Belgium, Germany, Austria, the United States and Canada. My doctoral research was funded by a grant from the Belgian federal service of foreign affairs (2013-2016) and a completion grant from the European University Institute (2016-2017).
Apart from doing research, I have already gained substantial teaching experience prior to concentrating on teaching in Utrecht. Before coming to the EUI, I worked for two years (2011-2013) as a teaching assistant in the research group of Early Modern history at KU Leuven (Belgium). During my time at EUI, I guest lectured in Belgium and at EUI. In the academic year 2016-2017 I was the tutor for the Zotero research management software package at EUI.
I was trained as a historian at the University of Antwerp (MA 2009) and took an additional interdisciplinary degree in Medieval & Renaissance Studies at KU Leuven (MA 2011). Based on my MA work in Antwerp and Leuven, I published two peer reviewed journal articles.
I am strongly interested in cross- and interdisciplinary dialogues. This interest has developed because of my training and work experience in Leuven’s faculty of Arts, where scholars of literature, linguistics, art history, archeology and area studies are the closest neighbours of historians, as well as my time at the European University Institute, where lawyers, sociologists, political scientists and economists regularly were my interlocutors. At the Leibniz IEG, conversations with theologians and scholars of religion have opened up new lines of interest and broadened my scope. My teaching in Utrecht’s PPE program allows me to collaborate with colleagues from political science, economics and philosophy. Thanks to these diverse contacts and conversations I have come to enjoy reading a variety of scholarship beyond the boundaries of my own field. My own work has evolved because of these diverse experiences and readings and it has made me more aware of the distinctive role of history as a discipline at the intersection of the humanities and the social sciences.
I am happy to discuss my work and academic interests with scholars and any other interested party. I am also particularly open to share and discuss my experience of doing a PhD at the European University Institute with prospective candidates who may want to embark on such an academic adventure. Do feel free to write me.