Prof. dr. Hanneke van Laarhoven - Steering committee member & supervisor

Hanneke van Laarhoven (MD, PhD, PhD) is a medical oncologist, Professorof Translational Medical Oncology and Head of the Department of MedicalOncology at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers. She is a strong advocateof interdisciplinarity within science, as evidenced by her two MA degrees - inboth Medicine and Theology (both cum laude), as well as her two PhDs - inMedical Oncology (cum laude) and the Religious Sciences. In her search for newand better treatment methods for patients with cancer, she seeks collaborationsbetween the (bio-)medical, social and humanities. Her translational researchfocuses primarily on esophageal, gastric and pancreatic cancer. In addition toclinical research, van Laarhoven also shapes research on quality of life, shareddecision making and spiritual care. In collaboration with Radboud UniversityNijmegen and the Utrecht School of the Arts, van Laarhoven started the researchproject “In search of stories. This research focuses specifically on the roleof artists and spiritual caregivers in palliative care. Read more about the'Looking for stories' project here.

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She currently supervises more than 30 doctoral students, postdocs and research assistants from a variety of backgrounds, including medicine, biology,artificial intelligence, humanities and psychology. Van Laarhoven has published over 550 peer-reviewed articles and numerous abstracts for national and international meetings.

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Click here for a full bio and list of publications.

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Dr. Niels van Poecke - Advisor

Dr. Niels van Poecke is a Senior Researcher working within the research line "Contingency, Culture & Oncology" (CCO) at the Department of Medical Oncology (Amsterdam UMC). He studied Philosophy (MA, 2007) and Sociology (MA, 2005) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His MA thesis in Philosophy was published by Klement Publishers (2008) under the title The Tragedy of Tragedy: On Nietzsche, Wagner, and Blues Music. He won the Popscriptie Prize from the National Pop Institute for this work. In 2017, Van Poecke obtained his PhD in the field of cultural sociology, with a dissertation on constructions of authenticity in contemporary folk music (Authenticity Revisited: The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Independent Folk Music in the Netherlands – 1993-2017). He specializes in both theoretical and qualitative-empirical research, as well as in the use of participatory and arts-based research methods, such as photo voice. He has previously published work on participatory art, the relationship between culture/music and social inequality, and the use of (pop)music as a self-care tool and medium in the construction of narrative identity. Within the CCO research line, he works as a project leader and researcher on various projects, such as Cancer in Everyday Life (CiEL), which explores the role of music in narrative meaning-making for (young) adults with cancer; In Search of Stories (ISOS), which investigates the narrative integration of cancer as the experience of contingency through literature and artistic co-creation; and Staging Cancer (SC), a participatory research/art project focused on the reconstruction of narrative identity in young adults after cancer.

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Marike Geurts - PhD Candidate

Marike Geurts is a PhD student at the Amsterdam UMC. She is academicallytrained as an art and cultural historian. During the master she worked forStudio I - platform for inclusive culture, a collaboration between the VanAbbemuseum and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, in which she dealt withinclusion and diversity issues in the cultural sector.  During the corona pandemic, she retrained asa nurse with a specialization in elder care. In her work as a nurse, she gainedextensive experience in palliative care. She can now combine this broadknowledge and experience in her research on what Art-Based Learning can do foroncology patients in the palliative phase.

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