Department: Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication

  • Alieke Broidioi

    I am a PhD researcher at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication (VTC). My doctoral research focuses on accent bias in recruitment in Flanders. I study how both regional and foreign accents influence the evaluation of candidates during hiring processes. I am not only interested in whether candidates with an accent are less likely to be hired, but also in the underlying mechanisms and perceptions that may explain these differences.

  • Juliette Michaud

    Juliette is currently enrolled in a joint PhD at Ghent University and ULB in Brussels. She obtained her Master’s Degree in Multidisciplinary Translation from the Institut supérieur de traducteurs-interprètes (formely ISTI, now attached to ULB), with the language combination English-Arabic-French, as well as a second Bachelor adding Spanish. During her Master’s degree and onwards, she started working as a public service interpreter in different structures in Brussels. After several years on the field of interpretation and teenagers literacy, she started a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Dr. K. Maryns and Prof. Dr. J. Jaspers in 2025. Her project focuses on linguistic accommodation strategies amongst Arabic interpreters and their interlocutors, and builds on a participatory methodology involving interpreters as well as providers and users of interpreting services.

  • Laura Robaey

    Laura Robaey is a doctoral researcher at Ghent University, in the German section of the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Linguistics and a Master’s degree in Interpreting (2022, Ghent University) and Teaching (2025, Ghent University). Since 2023, she has been researching gender-fair language in multilingual service provision contexts. In 2024, she received funding from the Research Foundation Flanders for the project “Gender-fair language use in interpreted interaction between service providers and gender-diverse persons”. Her research investigates how interpreted encounters shape the expression and negotiation of identity in intercultural communication. Her research interests include multilingualism, dialogue interpreting, and language as a practice of social integration.

  • Sarah Van Hoof

    Sarah Van Hoof is associate professor of Dutch and multilingual communication. Her research is situated in the domain of sociolinguistics. Central themes in her work are language ideology and language politics in postwar and present-day Flanders, language policy and practices in public institutions and the role of language in the employment of non-Dutch-speaking newcomers.

  • Katrijn Maryns

    I am associate professor in the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication My linguistic-ethnographic research examines multilingual practices and linguistic inequality in institutional contexts of asylum and migration. I am the author of ‘The asylum speaker: Language in the Belgian asylum procedure’ (Routledge 2006) and co-editor of the book series ‘Translation, Interpreting and Social Justice in a Globalised World’ (Multilingual Matters). I am supervising several projects on language and migration, including research on multilingual communication between immigration lawyers and their refugee clients, on migrants and refugees with a linguistically vulnerable profile (speakers of lesser diffused languages, low literacies), on video-remote language assistance for migrants and refugees and on the multilingual communication between unaccompanied refugee minors and their legal guardian.

  • July De Wilde

    July DE WILDE is associate professor in the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University, Belgium. Her research focuses on multilingualism, intercultural communication in migration contexts, public service interpreting and the use of digital / non-digital tools as communication support during face-to-face interactions. She is particulalry interested in the exploration and assessment of the possibilities and (dis)advantages of a wide range of language support strategies that facilitate the communication between public service providers and culturally/linguistically diverse speakers.

  • Chloé Lybaert

    I am an Assistant Professor of Dutch as a Second Language in the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication. My research can be situated in the field of (developmental) sociolinguistics. In my PhD I studied linguistic laypersons’ perceptions and attitudes towards language variation in Flanders, with a focus on Colloquial Dutch (‘tussentaal’). For my PhD I only worked with native speakers of Dutch. As a postdoctoral researcher, I started to focus more on Dutch spoken by (adult) L2 speakers. I am interested in their experiences with learning and speaking Dutch in Flanders, and in the influence of Colloquial Dutch on their language learning process. In addition, I remain interested in attitudes and perceptions towards language use and variation, but nowadays I mainly focus on the effect of non-native accents, non-standard linguistic variation and ethnicity on attitudes towards speakers.

  • Bart Defrancq

    Graduated as a Romance philologist in 1991, I successfully defended my PhD in 2002 in linguistics. In 2007 I moved to translation and interpreting studies. My research focusses on interpreting modes and interpreter-mediated forms of interaction in international institutions, in courts and police stations. I also investigate the impact of and interaction of interpreters with new interpreting technologies. My affiliation with CESSMIR stems from the research I carry out on police interpreting, where migration plays an important role.

  • Ella van Hest

    Ella van Hest is a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication, where she is a member of the MULTIPLES research group. Her research interests include language and migration, multilingual communication, (non-professional) interpreting, and language policy. For her PhD project she conducted a linguistic ethnography on language diversity at an abortion clinic. Previous research (MA level) focused on the effects of Flemish language and integration policy on adult newcomers.

  • Simon O’Donovan

    I am a doctoral researcher at the Department of Translation, Interpreting, and Communication, and also part of the MULTIPLES research group. I graduated from my Masters in Applied Linguistics at UCL/ IOE (London) in 2020. In my doctoral research I am investigating the on/off-line discourses of being/ being made and being from here/ not being from here in the Belgian reception network.

  • Shauny Seynhaeve

    Shauny Seynhaeve is a PhD student at the department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University. She holds a Master’s degree in English and Dutch Linguistics and Literature and an additional Master’s degree in language teaching. Since October 2020 she is working on a research project about the educational and interactional reality of regular secondary education for Newly Arrived Migrant Students.

  • Sari Goukens

    Sari Goukens is a doctoral researcher currently working on a joint PhD project at the University of Antwerp and Ghent University. She aims to research the influence of interpreters on the entextualisation process during sham marriage investigations in Flanders, looking into both municipal and police investigations. She has previously worked on a Fedasil National Project at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication (UGent), aiming to evaluate the digital competencies and needs of asylum seekers in Belgium. She studied at Ghent University’s Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication, and has obtained a BA in Applied Linguistics and an MA in Interpreting (Dutch, English and Turkish), including a certificate for sworn interpreting.

  • Mira Wyns

    I’m a PhD researcher at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication (VTC). I conduct research in the field of accent bias, more specifically in Flemish secondary and higher education. I investigate whether pupils and students feel discriminated against because of their accent, and whether teachers and lecturers underestimate them on the basis of their accent.

  • Sara Delva

    Sara Delva is an assistant in the Department of Translation, Interpretation and Communication and a member of the MULTIPLES research group. Her doctoral research deals with the right to language assistance for foreign-language speakers involved in criminal proceedings. More specifically, she investigates how international legislation on the right to an interpreter and the right to translation is concretely applied by Belgian police forces, public prosecutors’ offices and courts. Besides her research activities, she also teaches in the Bachelor of Applied Linguistics and the Master of Translation.

  • Laura Schildt

    Laura Schildt is a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in high-stakes language tests and policymaking in the immigration context. She holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Ghent, an MSc in Applied Linguistics at the University of Oxford and a MA in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (US).

  • Marie Jacobs

    Marie Jacobs is a post-doctoral researcher in the field of sociolinguistics. Next to a dedicated CESSMIR member, she is also part of the MULTIPLES Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society. Her doctoral dissertation presented a linguistic ethnography of the role of language in legal assistance to asylum seekers. She has published in international journals such as Language in Society, Journal of Pragmatics and Multilingua. Her research interests concern the role of language in settings of asylum and migration, the discursive dynamics of institutional encounters and the methodological intricacies of conducting qualitative research in superdiverse contexts.

  • Marieke Vanbuel

    Marieke Vanbuel is a postdoctoral researcher of FWO Flanders attached to the research group MULTIPLES of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of UGent, and to the research group Educational Effectiveness and Evaluation of the Department of Educational Studies at KU Leuven. Her research focuses on language policy, second language acquisition and educational effectiveness. She has experience with research in contexts ranging from primary education to adult education.

  • Lotte Remue

    Lotte Remue is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication, where she graduated as an interpreter Dutch-French-English in 2022. Her PhD focuses on the multilingual resources and strategies employed in the communication between unaccompanied refugee minors and their legal guardians.

  • Emma Maes

    Emma Maes is a PhD researcher at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication and a member of the research group MULTIPLES. She conducts research in the field of Second Language Acquisition(SLA) and focuses on the learning process of adult migrant learners of Dutch (NT2) who have limited or interrupted formal education. Her doctoral research investigates in particular which types of feedback – implicit or explicit – lead to measurable learning gains for this population. In addition, her project will validate some commonly used measurement instruments in the field of SLA, thereby focusing on the possible construct bias these measurement instruments may pose for learners with limited formal education or literacy skills.

  • Elisa Robbe

    In 2019, I graduated at as a Master of Arts in Interpreting (Dutch-Eng-Spanish), after which I continued a Master of Science in Conflict & Development Studies. These two masters gave me the tools to prepare a research application on migration in the context of transit in Mexico. After working with the NGO Oxfam Belgium at the education and campaigns department, I was able to start a PhD in 2023 with the Spanish section of the department of Translation, Interpreting & Communication at Ghent University, where I graduated in 2019. My interests lie at the intersections of language, (digital) communication, solidarity and migration.

  • Dries Cavents

    Dries started his academic career studying Applied Linguistics at the KU Leuven in Antwerp, with the language combination English, Italian and French. After two years in Belgium, he left for Italy for a year, where he completed his Bachelor’s degree at the Università degli Studi di Trieste. Back in Belgium, he started the Master’s in Interpreting, with the same language combination, also at the KU Leuven. After having obtained his Master’s degree, he still had not had enough of interpreting, so he started the Postgraduate Course in Conference Interpreting in Brussels to learn all the tricks of the trade. At the end of this very practically-oriented course, he wanted to go back to more academic pursuits and decided to start an interpreting doctorate at Ghent University. So, currently he is working on a project that investigates how interpreters deal with politeness within interpreter-mediated conversations and where the differences between online and face-to-face conversations lie.