Nel de Mûelenaere is Associate Professor of Contemporary History and Head of the History Program at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her teaching focuses on the history of warfare, historical research methods, and the philosophy of history. Her research examines the lived experiences of people in Belgium during and after the two world wars. One strand of her work explores the interactions between international philanthropy and social welfare during and after the First World War. Another research line examines the experiences and impact of resistance in Belgium during the Second World War.

She currently holds the research chair Traces of the Resistance (2024–2028) in collaboration with the non-profit organisation Heroes of the Resistance. She is a member of the editorial board of the BMGN: Low Countries Historical Review and co-convenor of the Occupation Studies Research Network.

Previously, de Mûelenaere was a visiting fellow at UC Berkeley (2022) and Cornell University (2019) and served as Academic Co-Director of the Brussels Institute for Advanced Studies (2020–2022). She earned her PhD in Political History from the University of Antwerp in 2016. Her dissertation examined overlooked processes of militarization in Belgian society between 1890 and 1914 and was published by Leuven University Press in 2019.