Member of the Centre for Urban History and appointed Postdoctoral Fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO). A full resume can be found here.

I studied History at the universities of Antwerp, Leiden, Paris and Oxford, and recently mounted a successful defense of my dissertation (Antwerp, 5 May 2010) titled Affluence and Inequality in the Low Countries. The City of 's-Hertogenbosch During the Long Sixteenth Century (1500-1650). This dissertation explored economic theory and historical practice of economic growth and development, living standards, income distribution and inequality in a pre-industrial economy. In addition I have studied late medieval and early modern financial history, urban finances in particular, and theory and patterns of social stratification and mobility in the urban context of the early modern Low Countries. The former research resulted in the monograph Tussen stad en eigen gewin: stadsfinanciën, renteniers en kredietmarkten in 's-Hertogenbosch (begin zestiende eeuw) published by Aksant (more info here).

My current research focuses on the interplay of economic growth and living standards and on the long-term development of economic and social inequality and mobility in the Low Countries between 1500 and 1900. In 2011 I organized a number of conferences and workshops in Antwerp related to these themes, such as the N.W. Posthumus Institute Conference 2011 (12-13 May) on 'Households as agents of change?', a FRESH-meeting on 'Economic growth and development before 1900' (28 October) and the Sixth Low Countries Conference on 'Rich and poor in pre-industrial Europe' (1-2 December).

This year I also became Research Leader of the Posthumus research program Economy and Society of the Pre-Industrial Low Countries in a Comparative Perspective (N.W. Posthumus Institute website; program website in progress), and Theme Leader of the research theme Economic Growth, Welfare and Inequality of the Centre for Urban History of Antwerp University (CUHUA website).

This year (2011/2) I teach the BA course 'Quantitative Methods', a short course on historical methodology and the MA course ‘History of Welfare and Inequality from Antiquity to the Present Day’ at Antwerp University, and the BA course 'Quantitative Research Methods' at the Free University Brussels (as guest lecturer, 0.1 FTE).