Professors Jan Boone and Jan Bourgois are helping prepare Belgian rowers Tim Brys and Niels Van Zandweghe for the Olympic games in Tokyo. But what exactly are they doing, and what can we learn from research into elite sports? Also: why do the rowers wear Happy Sock-branded socks, and why is one allowed to eat sandwiches while the other isn’t?
Remarkably, work that started as an occasional side project has resulted this year in a change to European law. Thanks to Liesbeth Jacxsens and Mieke Uyttendaele, more food can now be donated to those in need.
What is feminism? Ask feminists of different generations and you will get a different answer. Equally, the way feminists are viewed has also evolved. A conversation about the importance of gender, inclusiveness and the future of feminism.
Doctoral students Elaheh Niazi from Iran and David Gleerup from Denmark arrived in Ghent around the beginning of the second lockdown. Although they have already been here for several months, they have actually hardly seen the city, or even colleagues.
For a year already, corona has been affecting our lives and work. Many people at Ghent University are employing their expertise in research relating to the virus. Some more publicly, and others behind the scenes.
Two alumni look back on their education and the direction they followed. Even though they started on the same road, it ultimately led to other places. Tom and Marie-Astrid both studied medicine at Ghent University.
The corona crisis has forced Marleen Temmerman - gynaecologist, ex-politician, Ghent University researcher and professor - to find creative solutions in her work in Kenya. That work is also her life’s work: improving the rights and lives of women and children. When she talks about it, you hear, above all else, her fighting spirit and faith in a better future.
Ghent University alumnus Tim Leyman won De Nieuwe Lichting, a music competition run by national radio station Studio Brussel, with his band Ramkot. Remarkably, there were two other former students of Ghent University in the finals. Let’s meet these three musical alumni.
Miglena Dikova-Milanova teaches Bulgarian in the faculty of Language and Literature at Ghent University. She has Bulgarian roots, but has been living in Belgium since the 1990’s. “I have rediscovered nature and myself during this period.”
Alex Verhegge graduated from Ghent University in 1969 with a law degree. He launched his career as a lawyer and later combined this with an assistantship at the university. He then became a magistrate, and was ultimately employed at the prosecutor general’s office in the appeal court in Brussels, where he was forced to retire this year.
Ko Delforge is in her last year of secondary school. She used the extra time that was suddenly available for all kinds of creative projects. However, she struggled with the lack of social contact. She compensated by writing lots of letters to friends and family. Little pleasures in a strange year.
Lennert Camp is in his third year of a bachelor’s degree in Dutch-Swedish. He was always going to study Swedish, he says, as not does he like Ikea, but also because he particularly appreciates Sweden, which he discovered while travelling. He thinks the whole country is cool!
