In briefI am a biologist from Belgium and employ a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to the study of human-nature and human-food relations, notably insects as human food and leisure in non-European cultures. My fields include entomology, ethno-entomology, food psychology, human geography, and history. I have international research and living experience in Japan, Laos, Madagascar, South Korea, and the Netherlands.
See me also on LinkedIn, ResearchGate, Mendeley, Google Scholar, and ORCiD. See me also on KU Leuven: https://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/nl/person/00158747. Currently at the Centre for Asian Area Studies, Rikkyo University, 3-34-1 Nishi-Ikebukuro, Toshima, 171-8501 Tokyo, Japan. |
Biosketch
My educational and research fields are biology (basic biology, entomology, production ecology, resource conservation, ecosystem services), anthropology (ethno-entomology, human geography), and psychology (perceptions, attitudes, food, animals, nature leisure). This set of fields helps me to explain and exploit complex human-food and human–nature relationships, notably insects as human food and leisure. I am very critical about the possibilities of edible insects for the future of food and feed, but I also recognize clear potentials and I am very realistic about those potentials as is reflected by my publication record, the methodologies that I use in my work, and the way that I interpret my data (see publications). I am highly mobile with work and living experiences in the Netherlands (ca. ten years), Laos (ca. three years), Japan (three years), Madagascar (a three-month and a five-month research expedition), and South Korea (more than one year). Research, teaching, and supervising objectives have been successfully accomplished in unfamiliar cultures, in adverse working conditions, and under long-term physical hardship. My international collaborators include experts in tropical entomology, insect conservation, pollination ecology, ecological anthropology, human geography, and psychology. I have made a notable contribution to science and industrial applications as second author of the landmark publication ‘Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security’ (FAO). I am a supervisor of BSc and MSc theses in Laos and Madagascar, a reviewer for scientific journals, an invited speaker, a member of a PhD Examination Committee at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and guest-editor of the Special Issue ‘Diversity of Edible and Therapeutically Important Insects and Other Arthropods’ of the journal Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818, MDPI).
Personal qualifications: Versatile; innovative; independent; team-player; non-ideological; evidence-based scientist; critical; accurate; observing; detailed; patient; broad-minded; initiative; self-education.
Personal qualifications: Versatile; innovative; independent; team-player; non-ideological; evidence-based scientist; critical; accurate; observing; detailed; patient; broad-minded; initiative; self-education.
Seal of Excellence, delivered by the European Commission for the proposal Disrupting the mutualistic association of Oecophylla smaragdina weaver ants with honeydew-producing insects, H2020-MSCA-IF-2018.