Who we are?
Margot Janssens
PhD researcher
Margot Janssens is a doctoral student in the Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society (MULTIPLES) at Ghent University (Belgium) and also works as a research assistant at the Flemish Sign Language Center (VGTC). Within the ChangIN’signs project, she investigates how prolonged contact with Dutch shapes construction variation and change in Flemish Sign Language (VGT). She studies the impact of this language contact and how social and cognitive mechanisms reveal structural changes at the construction level. In addition, she investigates how usage-based dynamics, social variation, and the perceptions and attitudes of language users contribute to these changes. Her research combines corpus analyses with qualitative methods such as focus groups and surveys, using constructions as central units to map variation and change across users and contexts.
Jorn Rijckaert
PhD researcher
Jorn Rijckaert was born deaf and is a Flemish Sign Language user. He first came into contact with International Sign through the world of sports during his teenage years. After completing his university studies, he worked primarily as a teacher of Flemish Sign Language and as an interpreter/translator, using Dutch, Flemish Sign Language, and International Sign as his working languages. Furthermore, he ran a media company specializing in sign language media. He contributed to various research projects, including Mobile Deaf (Heriot-Watt University) and SignON (led by Dublin City University). He has also published several academic papers on the comprehensibility of news in/with Flemish Sign Language for deaf signers, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the Chang’IN’signs project, he investigates unimodal contact between Flemish Sign Language and other sign languages, including International Sign.
Heidi Verhelst
PhD researcher
Heidi Verhelst is a deaf doctoral student in the Department of Linguistics at Ghent University. Before starting her doctoral research, she gained experience as a teacher and home tutor working with deaf children, adolescents, and adults. Within the ChangIN’signs project, she investigates language variation in Flemish Sign Language, with a specific focus on traditional regional varieties, processes of (spontaneous) standardization, and generational differences. In addition, she studies how deaf signers experience current language changes and the standardization process. In her research, she combines corpus analyses with qualitative research methods, such as interviews and focus groups.
Prof. Dr. Mieke Van Herreweghe
Supervisor
Prof. Mieke Van Herreweghe is a senior full professor at Ghent University and served two terms as vice rector (2017–2025). Together with Myriam Vermeerbergen, she pioneered research on Flemish Sign Language (VGT) and the Flemish Deaf Community. She published the first exploratory grammar book on Flemish-Belgian Sign Language in 1995. They co authored numerous publications and collaborated in many VGT research projects. After degrees in Germanic Languages (Ghent University, 1987) and Linguistics (University College Dublin, 1988), she completed an FWO PhD (1996) with a research stay at RIT/NTID Rochester (USA).
Her career at Ghent University spans roles from research assistant to senior full professor, with an increasing focus on VGT linguistics. She is a trained VGT–Dutch interpreter and taught in the interpreter training programme at CVO VSPW, later serving as chair. She co founded and chaired the Flemish Sign Language Centre (VGTC) and chaired the first VGT Advisory Committee (2008–2012). She has (co-)supervised twelve PhDs, including some on (sign) language acquisition, phonology, grammar and AI based sign recognition. She has led numerous major VGT projects, including the VGT-Dutch online dictionary, the VGT corpus, cross linguistic work with SASL, and studies on deaf children’s language development.
Prof. Dr. Myriam Vermeerbergen
Supervisor
Myriam Vermeerbergen is Full Professor at the Faculty of Arts, KU Leuven, where she teaches at the Antwerp campus, with a focus on Flemish Sign Language (VGT) linguistics and interpreting. In the early 1990s, she pioneered sign language research in Flanders; her PhD project constituted the first large-scale study of the grammar of VGT. Her subsequent postdoctoral research included further linguistic investigation of VGT, lexicographical studies, research on home sign, sociolinguistic studies within the Deaf community, and typological research.
In 1997, she co-founded the Flemish Sign Language Centre and she contributed to the process that led to the official recognition of VGT in 2006. Since 2008, together with her deaf colleagues, she has been responsible for establishing and developing the first academic training programme for VGT interpreters. Her current research spans sign language linguistics—with a continued focus on VGT—the interface between gesture and sign, sign language technology, and sign language interpreting and translation.
Dr. Inez Beukeleers
Postdoctoral researcher
Inez Beukeleers is a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven’s Department of Linguistics. Her research is situated in the domains of interactional linguistics, conversation analysis, cognitive linguistics and gesture studies. In the Chang’IN Signs project, Inez will be co-responsible for the extensions of the Corpus VGT and the supervision of the three subprojects, in particular the project on age and regional variation in VGT. Moreover, Inez will conduct cross-linguistic research on VGT and LSFB in order to gain corpus-based insights on variation and language distance between these languages.
In previous work, Inez has investigated various aspects related to multimodal interaction management in (spoken) language discordant medical consultations and in Flemish Sign Language interactions. She thereby adopted a multifocal eye-tracking approach.
Dr. Fien Andries
Postdoctoral researcher
Fien Andries is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Linguistics, research group MIDI, at KU Leuven. Her research interests lie at the intersection of cognitive and interactional linguistics, conversation analysis, and gesture studies, with a focus on multimodality and semiotics in sign languages (and spoken languages), co-construction in face-to-face interaction, and sociolinguistic variation therein.
During her doctoral project, she investigated the use of multimodal enactments for stance-taking in Flemish Sign Language, with Prof. Myriam Vermeerbergen and Prof. Geert Brône as her supervisors.
Within the Chang’IN’Signs project, she works as a postdoctoral researcher. In addition to coordinating data collection for the Corpus VGT, she focuses on the divergence and convergence of VGT and LSFB and supervises Jorn Rijckaert in his doctoral research.
Dr. Beatrijs Wille
Postdoctoral researcher
Beatrijs is an assistant professor and postdoctoral researcher at the Brussels Centre for Language Studies (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and is additionally affiliated with Ghent University’s Department of Linguistics. Her research focuses on sign language linguistics and multilingualism, with particular interest in early communication, sign language acquisition and Dutch literacy in deaf children, and the educational opportunities available to deaf pupils.
Within the Brussels Centre for Language Studies, she is the Open Science spokesperson and research data manager. Since April 2025, she is a member of the Young Academy Belgium – Flanders. She serves as co-supervisor for Margot Janssens’s doctoral research on the influence of Dutch on Flemish Sign Language.
