Research

My academic background lies in the history and sociology of science and knowledge, which I studied at KU Leuven (BA 2016), Ghent University (MA 2017, PhD 2024), and The University of Chicago (MA 2018).

My work so far has always addressed how big twentieth-century trends have affected the use and production of knowledge, and historical knowledge in specific. I am interested in how trends like digitization, European integration, neoliberalization, the birth of the “knowledge society”, the rise of populism and the massification of universities affected humanities scholars and historians after 1945, thereby touching on their roles as experts, as professionals, and as peers. Many of my publications examine the politics and production of twentieth-century historical knowledge, while my work also extends to the history of science and to the history of universities.

In June 2024, I defended a dissertation on the history of European research funding for historical research. Since then, I started a new FWO Junior Postdoctoral research project on the history of peer evaluation in the humanities with Sjang ten Hagen (Utrecht University) and joined the team of Johan Östling at Lund University to study the Europeanization of universities between 1980 and 2010. Together with four other historians and sociologists, I formed the Constructive Advanced Thinking Group Freedom to Research, which addresses the effects of various funding regimes on humanities scholars. I also continue to work with my colleagues Berber Bevernage, Walderez Ramalho and Eline Mestdagh on political uses of history and the relationship between history and democracy. Much of this work relates to the Centre for Meta- and Public History at Ghent University, where I am part of the co-ordinating team.