Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet

Biography

Since 1 October 2016, Ellen Desmet is an Assistant Professor of Migration Law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Ghent University. She teaches migration law, coordinates the migration law component of the Human Rights and Migration Law Clinic, and co-lectures legal anthropology. She is affiliated to the Human Rights Centre, CESSMIR (Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees) and GRILI (Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute).

Ellen Desmet complemented her law studies (KU Leuven) with a master in Cultures and Development Studies (KU Leuven) and a master in Development Cooperation (Ghent University), each time magna cum laude. She holds a PhD in Law from the KU Leuven (2010). She worked as a senior research and policy advice officer at the Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre (KeKi, 2010-2012), and was a substitute lecturer in anthropology of law at KU Leuven.

From 2012 until 2016, Ellen was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University and the Law and Development Research Group of the University of Antwerp. She was the Project Manager of the Interuniversity Attraction Pole (IAP) “The Global Challenge of Human Rights Integration: Towards a Users’ Perspective” (UGent) and the methodological advisor of the Localising Human Rights research program (UAntwerpen).