PHPCI 2022 - Key Persons
Anne van Driessche holds a master's degree in Health Education and Promotion (HEP) and a master's degree in Global Health (GH) (Maastricht University). In September 2018, she joined the End-of-Life Care Research Group as a PhD-student aiming to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an advance care planning intervention for paediatric oncology in Flanders, Belgium.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Innovative Care
Casper Van den Bossche graduated from ULB in 2023 with a master's degree in neuropsychology and cognitive development. During his studies he examined the functioning of the brain and how dementia can occur naturally as a final process during the lifespan of a person.
Chelsea Vinckier (1998) obtained a bachelor's degree in nutrition (2019 - Artesis Plantijn) and a master's degree in Health Promotion at the University of Ghent in 2021. From august 2021 until September 2022 she worked as a health promotor at Logo Waasland vzw. In October 2022 she joined the End-Of-Life Care Research Group as a doctoral researcher. Chelsea participates in the EU NAVIGATE project.
Job Titles:
- Consultant With CNWL NHS Trust
- Palliative Medicine Consultant / Affiliate Members / Email Address
Biography
Dr Libby Sallnow is a palliative medicine consultant with CNWL NHS Trust in London, UK and an honorary senior lecturer at St Christopher's Hospice and the UCL Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, UK. She has helped lead and develop the fields of new public health approaches to end of life care, compassionate communities and social approaches to death, dying and loss over the past two decades in the UK and internationally. Her PhD explored the translation of a model of compassionate communities from Kerala, India to London, UK. She has published over 25 articles and book chapters in these fields and co-edited the book "International perspectives on public health and palliative care" in 2011. She is an Honorary Consultant at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Palliative Care in Kerala, India, Vice President of Public Health Palliative Care International, the President of the Palliative Care Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, UK, a post-doc researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium and the first author of the new Lancet Commission on the Value of death: bringing death back into life (2022).
Job Titles:
- Supervisor
- Postdoc Researcher
Marie Van de Walle (2001) obtained a Master's degree in Theoretical & Experimental Psychology (Ghent University, 2024). She joined the End-of-Life Care Research Group in September 2024 and will be working on the EU PAL-COPD project. This project aims to integrate patient-centred palliative care into the standard care for patients with advanced Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
Job Titles:
- Head of Midwifery Department
Ellen Roets obtained her Master's degree in Medicine with honors at the Catholic University of Leuven in june 2001, after which she finished a Master after Master in ObGyn in 2006 with training in Leuven, Genk, Bonheiden and Zwolle (Nl). From 2006 onward, she works at the Women's Clinic at University Hospital Ghent as a tertiairy obstetrician specialised in Prenatal Diagnosis and high-risk obstetrical care. She is involved in the education of medical students and ObGyn residents. Her doctoral research focuses on medical decision-making in pregnancy termination at viable stage.
Job Titles:
- Communication Trainer / Administrative and Technical Staff
Fien Mertens studied medicine at the Ghent University and obtained her Master's degree in Family Medicine in 2001. She works as a family physician in a community health care centre in Ghent. Fien is a communication skills trainer for medical students at the department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care, Medical Faculty of Ghent University. As junior researcher she was involved in research projects on workplace learning, inter-professional collaboration, palliative care and realist review. In 2015 she started a PhD project on Integrated Care for palliative patients.
Fien Van Campe (2000) obtained a bachelor's degree in social sciences: political sciences (VUB) and a master's degree in Sociology (UGent). In October 2022, she joined the End-of-Life Care Research Group as a doctoral researcher in the EU NAVIGATE project.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Ethics at Ghent University
Freddy Mortier is professor of ethics at Ghent University (Belgium). He is currently dean of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy. He teaches general philosophy and bioethics at the faculties of Psychology and Educational Studies, of Medicine and Health Sciences, and at his own faculty. He is a member of the (Belgian) National Advisory Committee for Bioethics and was chairman and/or secretary of several ad hoc working parties in that committee (advance directives, refusal of treatment by Jehova's witnesses, surrogacy, post mortem reproduction). He is also a member of the Ethics Committee of the Ghent University Hospital and a member of the directing board of viWTA, the Flemish Parliamentary Institute for Technology Assessment. He studied at Ghent University and at the University of Paris I (Sorbonne) and got his PhD in philosophy at Ghent University with a dissertation on views of the human body in 18th century French paediatrics and obstetrics. His interests in bioethics are mainly directed at end-of-life research, including the ethics of euthanasia and other end-of-life decisions. Other fields of special interest are the rights of minors in health care and the relation between religion and health care.
Joran Geeraerts holds a master's degree in Psychology: Theory & Research (2020, KU Leuven). During his full-time internship from 2019 to 2020 at the Research Group of Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences (KU Leuven), he investigated data quality in the context of Experience Sampling Methods (ESM), more specifically exploring statistical and methodological techniques to detect careless responding. In November 2020, he started working as a doctoral researcher at the End-of-Life Care Research Group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). His work as a researcher mainly focuses on adapting ESM to fit the needs of advanced cancer patients and testing its feasibility, possibly enabling the detailed study of patients' daily experiences (emotions, symptoms, context, etc.).
Julie Stevens graduated summa cum laude in 2014 as a Bachelor of Arts from Stetson University in Deland, Florida, where she majored in Psychology and German and minored in History. In 2017 she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Ghent as a Master of Science in Clinical Psychology. In September of 2018, she joined the End-of-Life Care Research Group as a doctoral researcher. She obtained her joint PhD in Social Health Sciences (VUB) and Health Sciences (UGent) in 2024. Her doctoral research focused on Advance Care Planning in general practice. Currently, she works as a postdoctoral researcher on the EU PAL-COPD project (Horizon EU), which aims to integrate palliative care into respiratory care for people with advanced COPD.
Kathleen Leemans studied clinical psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where she obtained her master degree in 2008. Shortly after, in February 2009, Kathleen started working as a junior researcher at the End of Life Care Research Group Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ghent University. During her PhD trajectory she developed quality indicators for palliative care in Flanders, Belgium, supervised by Prof. Luc Deliens and Prof. Joachim Cohen, and co-supervised by Prof. Lieve Van den Block. At this moment she is working as a post-doc researcher on a project to implement the quality indicators into the Flemish palliative care services.
Job Titles:
- Chairman EoLC
- Prof. ‘Public Health, Sociology & Ethics of the End of Life
Job Titles:
- Psychologist
- Postdoc Researcher
Biography
Khyati Tripathi is a psychologist and anthropologist from India, and approaches death studies from a multi-disciplinary lens spanning psychology, anthropology, and psychoanalysis. Through her interdisciplinary approach, she delves into the intricate psychosocial significance and connections between events, emotions, and practices related to death. Her work thus frames larger discussions on palliative care, bereavement, and funerary and post-funerary rituals. She deals with death both at the level of the individual and larger mass trauma events, which has enabled her work on memory.
She is a Postdoctoral researcher with the End-of-Life Care Research Group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and is working with Prof. Dr. Lara Pivodic on the ERC-funded project ‘TRAJECT,' which aims to create a novel framework for identifying the end-of-life trajectories of older people with serious chronic illness.
In 2022, Khyati was selected as the Bajaj Visiting Research Fellow at the South Asia Institute, Harvard University. Currently, she is an Honorary Research Associate at the South Asia Institute, Harvard University, and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society (CDAS), University of Bath.
Khyati secured her B.A. (Honors) and M.A. degrees in Psychology and an M.Phil. degree in Anthropology from the University of Delhi. She completed her PhD from the Department of Psychology at the University of Delhi, India, and was awarded the Commonwealth scholarship funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) to pursue a split-site PhD in collaboration with the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her PhD project, psychosocial in its nature, focused on the cultural construction of the dead in Hinduism and Judaism through culture-specific death rituals and mortuary techniques.
Koen Pardon has significantly improved communication education at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. As an advocate for evidence-based teaching, he has developed an advanced communication curriculum in collaboration with a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including academic leaders, students, medical professionals, and patients. This program, designed to improve doctor-patient interactions, is delivered in small group settings to maximize learning outcomes. Koen Pardon's commitment to improving communication skills in medical and pharmacy education is also shown by his writing of "Ik luister, voorschriften voor een gezonde arts-patiënt communicatie." This comprehensive book offers practical, evidence-based advice for better communication in healthcare.
Job Titles:
- Manager
- Press Contact
- Coordinator Communication & Valorisation
Leen Van Brussel is manager of valorisation, science communication and stakeholder engagement at the End-of-Life Care Research Group, where she coordinates the valorisation initiatives of the research group. She holds a master's degree and a PhD in Communication Sciences (VUB). Leen conducted her PhD research on the social construction of (the good) death and dying, applying a discourse-theoretical analysis of media representations of the end-of-life in Flanders, and their audience receptions. The PhD research was part of a lager research project: public views on the end-of-life (2010-2015). After her PhD research, Leen built up experience in primary health care in the city of Leuven, where she was one of the coordinators of the establishment of a community health centre. She continued her career at the Flanders Institute for Healthy Living, as an expert in health communication and social health inequities. She has years of experience in building and implementing knowledge, motivation and capabilities with regards to reducing health inequities in the preventive health care sector in Flanders.
Lien Dubois graduated in 2018 as a Master in Clinical Psychology. Subsequently to this study she completed a four-year postgraduate programme as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. In October 2022 she joined the End-of-Life Care Research Group as a doctoral researcher. Her project focuses on the development of an intervention to reduce avoidable transitions between hospitals and nursing homes.
Job Titles:
- Professor Medical Oncology
Job Titles:
- Head of Clinic, Medical Oncology Department
Madeleine Archer is an assisted dying research scholar with a background in law and science. Madeleine worked as a researcher on the Independent Inquiry into the Tasmanian assisted dying law, which was subsequently passed, and which is currently in its implementation phase. Madeleine is currently undertaking a PhD with the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Madeleine's PhD constitutes a Belgian-Australian comparative study on assisted dying regulation which is a component of prof. White's ARC Future Fellowship project, in collaboration with the End-of-Life Care Research Group.
Marie Van de Walle (2001) obtained a Master's degree in Theoretical & Experimental Psychology (Ghent University, 2024). She joined the End-of-Life Care Research Group in September 2024 and will be working on the EU PAL-COPD project. This project aims to integrate patient-centred palliative care into the standard care for patients with advanced Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
Marjolein Matthys has a Bachelor's degree in Clinical Psychology obtained at the University of Ghent (2008) and a Bachelor's and Master's degree of Cultural and Social Anthropology obtained at the University of Amsterdam (2010 and 2012, resp.). In the context of her Master's research she studied death confrontations as existential-dynamic conflicts in the lives of non-religious adults in the Netherlands. For this work she was awarded the Annual Thesis Competition Award of the UvA Department of Anthropology. In may 2019 she joined the End-of-Life Care Research Group as a doctoral researcher. Within the frame of the CAPACITY project, she works on developing a public awareness campaign to promote palliative care and its benefits.
Job Titles:
- Research Programme Manager
Michelle van der Meer obtained a bachelor in Biomedical Sciences at UHasselt (2016) and a master in Biomedical Sciences at UGent (2018). The past five years, she has worked as a consultant in Life Sciences. In April 2024, she joined the End-Of-Live Care Research Group as a doctoral researcher participating in the EU PAL-COPD project. This project aims to evaluate the ICLEAR-EU intervention to integrate palliative care in the treatment of people with advanced COPD and their family caregivers.
Job Titles:
- Head of the Geriatrics Dept of Ghent University Hospital
Nicholas is from the twin island republic of Trinidad and Tobago in the southern Caribbean. He has a unique combination of cross-functional skills and education in public health, programme evaluation and nursing. Nicholas worked as a critical care RN and co-ordinated a regional Caribbean HIV/AIDS programme with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As part of a team, he has also evaluated several regional projects for various international organizations.
Peter Theuns was born on April 18, 1962. At the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, he obtained a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology in 1985, an MBA in Management in 1988, and a PhD in (Mathematical) Psychology in 1992. He has taught several courses in Research Methods, Statistics and Data- Analysis and Professional Ethics. His research is on research methodology, Quality Of Life and Information IntegrationTheory. He is affiliated with the Experimental and Applied Psychology department at the VUB, and member of the End-of-Life Care Research Group.
Job Titles:
- Professor Emeritus of Palliative Care Research at the VUB
Prof Luc Deliens, is professor emeritus of Palliative Care Research at the VUB and Ghent University in Belgium and Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He is member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. In 2000 he founded the interdisciplinary End-of-Life Care Research Group of the VUB and Ghent University, in Belgium (www.endoflifecare.be) and chaired this group until 2024. At this moment, he still works on several running projects (EU-PAL COPD and MyPath) in the End-of-Life Care Research Group. Until 2024, he was also chairing the Centers of Expertise on Palliative Care of the universities in Flanders-Belgium.
Internationally, he has partnered in and coordinated several EU funded research projects (e.g. EURELD, PRISMA, EURO IMPACT, PACE, ACTION, DIADIC, MyPath, EU PAL-COPD). He is President of Public Health Palliative Care International and member (until 2024 chairing) of the Reference Group on Public Health and Palliative Care of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) and until 2023 he was Co-Chair of the EAPC Research Network.
His work has been supported by grants from the European Commission, FWO Research Foundation - Flanders, IWT the Flemish Government Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology, KoTK Cancer Society of Flanders, DWTC the Belgian Federal Ministry of Science Policy, the Department of Science Policy of the Brussels Government, VWS the Dutch Ministry of Public Health, ZONMW the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, OZR Research Fund of the VUB, BOF Research Fund of Ghent University, King Baudouin Foundation and other leading medical and health charities.
Prof Luc Deliens has published over 600 papers and book chapters, many in high impact journals or by leading publishing companies. He received several prestigious scientific awards for his work, e.g. in 2005 the Award De Beys for his medical research with a social dimension by the King Baudouin Foundation, in 2009 the Honorary Chair of the Flemish Cancer Society (VLK-Leerstoel), in 2019 the Award for Societal Dissemination of Research by the VUB university in Brussels, in 2022 the GW Hanks Award for outstanding research in palliative care, by the European Palliative Care Research Centre.
He is associate editor or editorial advisor for many international journals, e.g. Palliative Medicine, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Palliative Care and Social Practice. He is also advisor or review board member of research grants agencies and science foundations, e.g. FWO Research Foundation - Flanders, Swiss National Science Foundation, Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZONMW), Dutch Cancer Society (KWF), and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Job Titles:
- Head of Clinic, Dept of Gastroenterology
Prof. Dr. K. Geboes studied medicine at KU Leuven where she also obtained her PhD. She specialized in digestive oncology in Nantes.
She is responsible for the treatment of patients with gastro-intestinal tumors and the follow up of patients with hereditary cancer syndromes in UZ Ghent. She has a specific interest in early introduction of palliative care: she was involved in the design and implementation of the first RCT investigating systematic early integration of palliative care into multidisciplinary oncology care in the hospital setting (IPAC) in Belgium. Karen Geboes is LEIF-arts and co-author of guidelines and papers concerning nausea and vomiting in palliative care.
Job Titles:
- Chairman EoLC
- Prof. of Public Health and Palliative Care
- Professor of the End - of - Life Care Research Group
Prof. Joachim Cohen is a social health scientist and a professor of the End-of-Life Care Research Group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Together with prof. Lieve Van den Block, he chairs the End-Of-Life Care research group, whilst chairing the research program public health and palliative care. He graduated in 2001 as a Master in Sociology and in 2007 as a PhD in Social Health Sciences. His research has been awarded with the Kubler Ross Award for Young Researchers and the Young Investigator Award from the European Association of Palliative Care 2010. Both prizes were awarded to him, mainly because of his large-scale population-based and population-level cross-national research on end-of-life care. Prof. Cohen has published over 150 articles in international peer reviewed journals, co-edited the Oxford University Press book: "A public health perspective on end of life care".
Casper Van den Bossche graduated from ULB in 2023 with a master's degree in neuropsychology and cognitive development. During his studies he examined the functioning of the brain and how dementia can occur naturally as a final process during the lifespan of a person.
Job Titles:
- Chairman EoLC
- Chairman of the End
- Prof. of Aging and Palliative Care
Prof. Lieve Van den Block is chair of the End-Of-Life Care research group together with prof. Joachim Cohen. She is founding chair of the Ageing and Palliative Care Research Program at the End-of-Life Care Research Group of the VUB and Ghent University in Belgium. She holds a PhD in Medical Social Sciences and a Master in Clinical Psychology. Lieve has been involved in palliative care and end-of-life research for over 20 years, focusing on national and international public health and interventional research aimed at monitoring and improving care and support for people with serious or advanced illnesses and their family. She has partnered in and coordinated several EU funded research projects, including currently as coordinator of the Horizon Europe EU NAVIGATE project. She is Commissioner for the Lancet Commission on Person-centered Long-term care for older people and chairs the Aging and Palliative Care Reference Group of the European Association of Palliative Care. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, has received several scientific awards for her work including the Collen-Francqui Research Professor Chair, and is co-editor-in-chief of Nature Springer's Textbook of Palliative Care. Her work has been supported by grants from the European Commission, national fundamental and applied research foundations, and leading medical and health charities.
Job Titles:
- Family Physician in Ghent
Robert Vander Stichele is a practicing family physician in Ghent, Belgium, since 1978. He combines his clinical practice with research projects since 1982 He obtained his PhD (in medical sciences) in 2004, and was appointed as teaching professor in the department of Pharmacology in the University of Ghent. He became a certified clinical pharmacologist in 2009. His interest are in information on and use of medicines. He is member of the board of the European Drug Utilisation Research Group (EURODURG). He is a senior-researcher in the research alliance on "End-of-Life Care", a consortium of the University of Ghent, Brussels, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. He is member of the Board of the International Society of Phthirapterists (ISOP), and of the European Society for the study of Patient Adherence and Compliance (ESPACOMP). He is a member of the Belgian Centre for Pharmacotherapeutic Information, and founding member of the Board of the Belgian Centre for Evidence-Based -Medicine (CEBAM). He is currently senior advisor for the creation of a web portal for evidence based medicines directed to the Belgian health care professionals (EBMPracticeNET). He has recently taken an position of Work Package Leader- Assistent in the Network of Excellence for Semantic Interoperability in Europe (SemanticHealthNet), and joined RAMIT, at the department of Medical Informatics of Ghent University. His publication list comprises more than 130 scientific papers (refereed in Medline).
Job Titles:
- Post - Doctoral Fellow
- Postdoc Researcher
Rose Miranda is a post-doctoral fellow of the FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) which is the most competitive national research funding agency in Belgium. She holdsa PhD degree in Social Health Science that she obtained within INDUCT, a prestigious and highly-competitive European Union-funded Marie-Skłodowska Curie Actions Innovative Training Network. Her PhD thesis focuses on multi-country descriptive and interventional research on palliative care for older people with dementia. Further, she holds a Research Master in Global Health and an Honour's Bachelor in Health Science degrees from VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands and a Nursing bachelor degree from the Philippines. She also had practical experience working as a nursing aid in the Netherlands. Currently, she is also involved in numerous, large-scale national and international research projects aiming to develop and evaluate innovative and sustainable care models for older people, including those with dementia (FWO post-doctoral fellowship project), cancer (Horizon Europe project) and other life-limiting illnesses. She is also a core member of the European Association for Palliative Care Reference Group on Ageing and Palliative Care. In the past, she was a dementia researcher within PACE "Palliative Care for Older People", a collaborative research project involving 12 EU partners, funded under the EU FP7 Health programme.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Expert in Pediatrics - Department of Specialized Pediatrics - Ghent University Hospital
Job Titles:
- Data Collector / Administrative and Technical Staff / Email Address