Ellen Van Houtven, BA MSc MSc

Affiliated Researcher
KU Leuven

Research Interests

• Adolescents
• Digital media
• Minority groups
• Media psychology
• Identity development

Since December 2022, Ellen has been working as a predoctoral researcher at KU Leuven’s School for Mass Communication Research, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Desirée Schmuck. In her FWO-funded research project, she focuses on the role digital super peers (i.e., social media influencers and digital TV show characters) play in adolescents’ gender and sexual identity achievement.

She originally joined the School for Mass Communication Research in July 2022, where she worked several months as a research assistant in Prof. Schmuck’s team. In this period, her research activities revolved around social media influencers’ political communication, adolescents’ media use, as well as their identity development, and online hate.

Ellen holds two master’s degrees in communication sciences: Digital Media and Society (MSc, 2022, KU Leuven University) and Multilingual Professional Communication (MSc, 2020, University of Antwerp). Before that, she completed her bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and Literary Studies (BA, 2019, University of Antwerp).

Publications & Presentations