Skip to main content
GSA 2023 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Back

An-Sofie Smetcoren, PhD (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Brussels, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, Belgium

I'm an assistant professor and postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Educational Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. I obtained my Master's degree in Adult Educational Sciences in 2010 and my educational Master's degree in Teacher Training in 2011. I finished my PhD research on Older People & Housing in 2016 within the Belgian Ageing Studies research group. My main research interests focus on how urban environments affect the daily lives of their older residents (e.g. with a specific focus on housing, but also access to services and care) and how processes of social inclusion and exclusion take place in communities. In addition, I have a particular interest in the experiences of and giving voice to older people in vulnerable situations through the use of co-creative and participatory research approaches. As senior researcher within the Society & Ageing Research Lab, I'm leading the research line "Housing and living environment". At present I'm one of the PI for the Strategic Basic Research (FWO-SBO) project HOUSE 'Innovating housing for older adults and subjective wellbeing' (2021-2025) and involved in the Marie Curie Sklodowska Curie Actions Doctoral Network project 'HOMeAGE' (2023-2026). In the past, I have worked on several national and European projects on housing and caring neighbourhoods such as Care & Living in Community (CALICO), RenoLab-C, Entour-Age Noord, ROSEnet, etc. In addition, since 2015, I have been a lecturer for the bachelor-after-bachelor programme in Psychosocial Gerontology at Odisee University College. Besides, I'm also member of the board of directors of 2 non-profit organisations: Aksent vzw (a local service centre in Brussels - since 2012) and Samenhuizen vzw (since 2021). And I participate/did participate in various advisory groups of research projects.

Disclosure information not submitted.

Presentation(s):

Email An-Sofie