Andrea is a senior researcher and lecturer at the LUCA School of Arts and also lectures and researches at Thomas More University of Applied Sciences in the Postgraduate Space and Service Design programme. A designer, researcher and lecturer in design, her expertise domains are interaction design, visual language communication, service design and design education. 

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In her research, she mainly focuses on design equity and how empathy emerges within the designer through interaction and participation with ‘design-poor’ individuals (people with dementia, young people with autism, people with a disability, people on the fringes of society, etc). Her PhD focused on the concept of designing for one and how focusing on one person’s needs impacts not only the outcome and process but the designer themself. This relation-based design participation between maker, participant and sometimes the necessary proxy participants, informs design decisions (products, services, functionality) and when used within education, it has the potential for impacting the designer’s future creative practice.

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In 2016, together with Dr. Hendriks, she co-founded the Dementia Lab Conference the first design conference dedicated to design and dementia. And co-supervises students as part of HOMEDEM, a European Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network. In 2025 she will launch her first children’s book dedicated to enabling children and adults to talk about loved ones who struggle with cognitive decline, Alice, Eliza & and Wind.

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A native of the US, but based in Belgium since 2010, Andrea is active mainly in Belgium, but has also worked in New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, the US, UK, Portugal and India in workshops and educational exchanges.

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