I studied Archaeology (focus: Historical Archaeology / North-Western Europe) at Ghent University. My bachelor paper on high medieval domestic architecture in southern East-Flanders was published in the e-journal of the Student Research Conference (The Netherlands). My master's dissertation, for which I received the biannual J.A.E. Nenquin prize, focused on medieval settlement and landscape in the Ghent area.
After my studies I worked for one year in commercial archaeology, at the intercommunal archaeological service SOLVA. In preparation of my PhD proposal, I stayed at the University of Oxford with prof. Helena Hamerow.
In October 2017, I joined the Historical Archaeology Research Group (HARG) at Ghent University for my FWO-funded PhD research. In this project, I studied several aspects of Early Medieval rural society in northern Francia (roughly modern-day northwestern Belgium), focusing on demography, domestic architecture, and settlement forms. I defended my PhD study, entitled "House and yard in Early Medieval northern Francia" in February 2022.
Currently, I am working on two projects. The first is a so-called "syntheseonderzoek archeologie" funded by Flanders Heritage Institute. Together with SOLVA, I study the development of medieval rural settlement and village formation in south-western Flanders. The second project concerns the update of the chapter "early medieval period" of the "Onderzoeksbalans Archeologie". This project, commisioned by Flanders Heritage Institute, will provide a state-of-the-art of archaeological and historical research into the early middle ages in modern-day Flanders (current administrative boundaries) as well as define new research questions.
My research interests concern the early historical period (Roman period - Middle Ages) in North-Western Europe and the historical county of Flanders in particular. I am particularly interested in several aspects of rural settlement and society, specifically on (long-term) dynamics in domestic architecture, settlement morphology and functions, the rural economy, population size and distribution, landscape exploitation and management, and socio-economic structures. I employ a range of different datasets, mainly archaeological fieldwork data (especially exploiting the recent boom in rural settlement evidence because of development-led archeology in Flanders), written and place name evidence, and palaeo-environmental data.
