Dr. Tijs Vandemeulebroucke (°1991) holds a Masters' Degree in Theology and Religious Studies (KU Leuven, 2013) and Philosophy (KU Leuven, 2015). Since 2016, Dr. Vandemeulebroucke works at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law where he developed his PhD-study (KU Leuven, 2019) and where he is currently developing a post-doc study. Since 2020, Tijs is also affiliated with the Resilient People Centre of the UC Leuven-Limburg, where he works as a care-ethics researcher.

Dr. Vandemeulebroucke’s main research interests lie in care ethics, bioethics, ethics of technology, philosophy of technology, phenomenology, and deconstruction. He focusses on the intimate relation between technology and care/medical practices, and the ethical nature of this relation. To gain insight in this relation he synthesizes philosophical-ethical research and empirical-ethical research. This is exemplified in his PhD-study The Use of Socially Assistive Robots in The Care for Older Adults: A Socio-Historical Ethical Analysis. This study aimed to develop ethical recommendations for the use of Socially Assistive Robots in aged care from a societal/global, organizational, and individual-relational perspective, and grounded in philosophical-ethical and empirical-ethical research. Tijs conducted his PhD-research under the promotorship of Prof. Dr. Chris Gastmans (Centre for biomedical Ethics and Law, KU Leuven) and Prof. Dr. Bernadette DIerckx de Casterlé (Academic Centre for Nursing and Midwifery, KU Leuven).

Currently, Tijs is conducting post-doc research, commissioned by the Flemish Government in Belgium, on ethical frameworks to evaluate health technology innovations. This research aims to develop an ethical evaluative framework in the Flemish societal context. Tijs is conducting his post-doc research in close cooperation with Prof. Dr. Chris Gastmans (Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, Ku Leuven) and prof. dr. Yvonne Denier (Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, KU Leuven).