Best Interests of the Child - Biography 1 | Page 8

Hanne OP DE BEECK
Hanne has a master’s degree in Criminological Sciences from the
University of Leuven, for which she did internships at the ‘Regina
Alternative Measures Program’ (a restorative justice program for youth
in Regina, Canada) and at the ‘Terrorism Prevention Branch’ (United
Nations, Vienna). After her graduation in 2006, she obtained an
additional

Academic

Teacher’s

degree,

also

at

the

University

of

Leuven. From 2008 to 2011, she worked as a researcher at the Youth
Research Platform; in December 2011 she defended her doctoral
thesis (title:‘Strain and youth delinquency. A dynamic relation? Testing
two central mechanisms from Agnew’s General Strain Theory’). Since
January 2012, Hanne has a halftime position at KeKi and remains a
research fellow at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC)  of the
University of Leuven.

Bruno VANOBBERGEN
Bruno Vanobbergen (1972) got his PhD in Educational Sciences at Ghent
University (Belgium) in 2003 with a research on the commodification
of childhood. He published several articles in international journals
on (the history of) childhood. He was professor at the Rijksuniversiteit
Groningen

(The

Netherlands)

and

visiting

scholar

at

Rutgers

University, Camden (USA). In June 2009 the Flemish Parliament
appointed him as the Flemish Children’s Rights Commissioner appointted. As a Commissioner he is responsible for monitoring children’s
rights in Flanders by mediating, investigating complaints and giving
policy recommendations. He is a member of the European Network of
Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC). Bruno Vanobbergen is also guest
professor childhood studies at Ghent University.

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