Laura Cools

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Biography

Laura Cools is a doctoral researcher at the UCLouvain, where she is part of the European Laws and Migration Research Team. She is also affiliated to the University of Namur (Unité Droits de l’enfant) and to Ghent University (Migration Law Research Group). Her research focuses on the implementation of children’s rights (and notably the principle of the best interests of the child) by the Belgian migration authorities in family reunification and ‘durable solution’ procedures. To this effect, she adopts an interdisciplinary approach, applying both legal and (qualitative) sociological methods.

Laura holds a Bachelor and Master of Laws degree from Ghent University (2019), where she became passionate by migration law. As part of her master studies, she spent one semester studying abroad at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, where she took multiple courses of the L.L.M. programme. During her studies, Laura was actively involved in several student and youth associations (such as Youth/Students for Climate, Debating Society Ghent and the Federal Youth Parliament).

Before embarking on a doctoral research, Laura worked as a (trainee) policy advisor at the European Parliament, where she focussed on inter alia European migration and asylum policy. Since January 2019, she is also a city councillor in Koekelare.