Department: Department of Sociology

  • Peter Stevens

    Peter A. J. Stevens (BA, MA Ghent University, MA, PhD Warwick University) is Professor in Qualitative Research Methods at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at Ghent University (Belgium). Stevens’ research interests cover the areas of sociology of education and race/ethnic relations. His work has been published in leading journals in the field of education, race and ethnic relations and sociology, including Review of Educational Research, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and Sociology of Education. He is editor with Gary Dworkin of The Palgrave Handbook of Race and Ethnic Inequalities in Education (Palgrave, 2019) and editor of Qualitative Data Analysis. Key Approaches (Sage, 2023). Stevens is currently supervising research on ethnic in-out group relationships in school settings.

  • Melissa Ceuterick

    Melissa Ceuterick is a postdoctoral researcher at Hedera UGent. In her PhD she focused on the impact of migration on traditional medicine use among people of Andean descent in the UK (Bradford University, 2009). Her research is situated at the intersections between 1) medication use and identity and 2) migration and health. She coordinates and supervises qualitative research in these areas, i.e. Belspo BENZONET, BENZOCARE, REMEDI; IBOF Opioid-related Stigma and FWO Red Noses Culture-Sensitive Stigma Survey, STAMINA. Since 2017 she is a lecturer-in-charge of the Health Sociology and Social Demography Seminar (UGent), where students develop a Community Service Learning project on health or migration, and of various health sociology courses (UGent-VUB). As of 2023 she is a member of the Advisory Board of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology.

  • Lesley Hustinx

    Lesley Hustinx is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Social Theory at the Sociology Department of Ghent University. Her primary areas of interest are social theory, political sociology, critical citizenship studies, and the sociology of the nonprofit sector and volunteering. Her research focuses on contemporary developments in citizenship and participation, including the citizenship practices of newcomers, the underrepresentation of ethnic groups in blood donations, and social inequality in volunteering.

  • Toyah Van der Poten

    Toyah Van der Poten is a PhD researcher at the Department of sociology, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at Ghent university. She has a history in documentary filmmaking and social-artistic work. The project she is working on focuses on the under representation of minorities in blood donation and questions the organizational field of blood donation. The lived experiences of missing minorities are studied through field work in Ghent (BE) and Leicester (UK).

  • Lies Saelens

    Lies Saelens obtained a Master of Science in Theoretical and Experimental Psychology at the University of Ghent in July 2022. Since the 1st of September 2022, Lies has been working as a PhD researcher within the research groups Hedera (Health and Demographic Research) and CuDOS (Cultural Diversity: Opportunities & Socialisation) at the Department of Sociology. Her project focuses on mental health stigma among ethnic minority and majority adolescents in Flanders and examines how the school context plays a role in this, more specific, social relationships with peers and teachers, the school culture, the school structure and the mental health school policy. In doing so, she will use a large-scale quantitative dataset in combination with in-depth interviews. She is working under supervision of Prof. Piet Bracke, Dr. Melissa Ceuterick and Dr. Fanny D’hondt. 

  • Julija Kekstaite

    Julija Kekstaite is doctoraatsonderzoeker Sociologie aan de Universiteit Gent en lid van het interfacultair Centrum voor de Sociale Studie van Migratie en Vluchten (CESSMIR). Haar werk onderzoekt migratiebeheer, solidariteit en verzet tegen verschillende vormen van racisme die in hedendaags Europa door de staat gesanctioneerd worden. Met behulp van etnografische methoden onderzoekt ze momenteel de grassrootsmobilisatie voor/met geïllegaliseerde migranten aan de grens tussen Litouwen en Wit-Rusland en de raciale dynamieken van migratiebeheer in Litouwen.

  • Camille Wets

    After obtaining her Bachelor’s degree in Nursing in 2017, Camille Wets graduated as a Master of Science in Sociology at the University of Ghent in September 2019. For her master thesis, she focused on the psychosocial well-being of unaccompanied refugee minors in Flemish foster care families. In September 2020, Camille started working as a PhD researcher on the BELSPO funded REMEDI project. The REMEDI project (2020-2023) aims to gain understanding in general practitioners’ decision-making regarding patients with a migration background with mental health problems in Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. Based at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, she is working under the supervision of Prof. Piet Bracke and Dr. Melissa Ceuterick (Department of Sociology, Hedera research group).