After obtaining my Master's degree in History (Ghent, 2011) and completing the Specific Teacher's Training (Ghent, 2012), I spent the next four years preparing a doctoral dissertation (FWO), treating diverse aspects of the socialization and representation of Roman ex-slaves at the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire. During this time, I have been a visiting scholar at Oxford University (January - May 2014), the British School at Rome and the Academia Belgica (September - November 2015). My PhD project was publicly defended on 19 May 2016, after prior examination (2 May) by the members of the jury committee: Elizabeth Deniaux (Paris University of Nanterre), Christian Laes (University of Antwerp & University of Tampere), Arjan Zuiderhoek (Ghent University) and Peter Van Nuffelen (Ghent University). In October 2016, I started working on a postdoctoral project, funded by the Special Research Fund (BOF) of Ghent University. It focuses on the integration of freedmen in the social texture of Roman communities and on the interaction between ex-slaves and the freeborn plebs urbana. I have presented my research on several international conferences (e.g. most recently the panel on "Roman Freedmen: Community, Diversity, and Integration" at the AIA/SCS Joint Annual Meeting in Boston, 4-7 January 2018). Besides research, I continue to be involved in teaching activities both within the Bachelor and Master curricula at Ghent University (head lecturer of Historical Practice I: Classical Antiquity, guest lecturer on Gender in Antiquity, etc.), and outside of it (e.g. guest lectures on slavery and freedmen at the Universities of Leuven and Brussels).
