An-Sofie Smetcoren is a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Educational Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her main research interests focus on how urban environments affect the daily lives of their older residents (e.g. with a specific focus on housing and the public space) and how processes of social inclusion and exclusion take place in communities. In addition, she has a particular interest in the experiences of and giving voice to older people in vulnerable situations through the use of co-creative and participatory research approaches. As senior researcher within the Society & Ageing Research Lab, she leads the research line “Housing and living environment”.
Currently she is a VUB promotor for the interuniversity Strategic Basic Research (FWO-SBO) project HOUSE ‘Innovating housing for older adults and subjective wellbeing’. In the past, she coordinated the research of several national and European projects such as Care & Living in Community (CALICO), RenoLab-C, Entour-Age Noord, etc. As a researcher she worked on several projects on (co)housing and caring neighbourhoods.Â
An-Sofie is a member of the board of directors of 2 non-profit organisations: Aksent vzw (a local service centre in Brussels) and Samenhuizen vzw.
