We’re pleased to announce that, starting in September 2025, Axel Van der Maelen will be joining SHOC as a TvO student. Axel began his history studies at VUB in 2023, with academic interests spanning social, criminal, and military history—particularly focused on the early modern period and the 19th century.
In the upcoming academic year, Axel will take part in the Talent for Research programme, where he’ll explore the possibilities and limitations of automatic transcription for analysing and transcribing handwritten documents from the drossaard of Brabant. Through this work, he’ll contribute to developing new methodological approaches to studying the history of passports from a bottom-up perspective. His research will be supervised by Anne Winter.
Alongside this project, Axel will participate in the research group’s weekly meetings and seminars. He is also working on his bachelor’s thesis, which investigates the mobility of soldiers and deserters in the early modern period.