Professor Dr. Nel de Mûelenaere

Professor Dr. Nel de Mûelenaere serves as a BrIAS Academic co-director. She coordinates the BrIAS subtheme Food systems and green deal policies in and beyond Europe. De Mûelenaere is also a member of research group Social and Cultural Food Studies (FOST) at the VUB. She is a historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe, and her research focuses on the relation between humanitarian aid, food and gender during and after the First World War.

One strand of her work examines the experiences and impact of female American relief workers in Belgium and France. Another looks at food and living standards of Belgian families during and after WWI and the development of home economics and nutritional science.

De Mûelenaere is Chair of the Research Committee of the Faculty of Languages and the Humanities.

Key words: food studies – gender history – humanitarian aid – social-economic history – 20th-century Belgium