Sofie De Veirman (1987) studied History at Ghent University, where she graduated in 2009 with a MA dissertation on the life courses of eighteenth-century midwives and practices of childbirth. In 2015, she finished a PhD on deaf men and women living in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Belgium, making use of life course analysis methods. More specifically, she examined the impact of nineteenth-century modernization processes on the opportunities in life of deaf persons. Currently, Sofie is a postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University, working on a research project on historical childlessness. The project aims at tracing and explaining variation in childlessness in 18th- and 19th-century Belgium and investigates how childlessness was experienced and coped with on an individual level. Sofie specializes in early modern and nineteenth century socio-economic history, and has published on issues of inequality, vulnerability, and life course opportunities and difficulties of people with disabilities before and during industrialization.
