Laura Dewitte

Laura's research focuses on the psychological and existential well-being of older adults, including those living with dementia. She has a particular interest in the psychological experience of meaning in life. Her current project investigates the role of different cognitive mechanisms (e.g, reflection, spontaneous thoughts) in the daily construction of meaning in life in dementia. Laura has done both cross-sectional and longitudinal work using a combination of methods, including self-report questionnaires, neuropsychological assessment, and in-depth interviews. In addition to her interest in dementia and topics of existential-positive psychology, she is also interested in open science and psychological research methods and practices. She currently works as a visiting scholar in the MIND team of prof. Muireann Irish at the Brain and Mind Centre of the University of Sydney.

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Laura started working as a postdoc in the Meaning Research in Late Life team in October 2020. For her postdoctoral work, she received a Postdoctoral Mandate of KU Leuven in 2020 and a three-year junior postdoctoral fellowship of the Research Foundations Flanders (FWO) in 2021. She joined the Meaning Research in Late Life team of prof. Dezutter in October 2015, and received a PhD Fellowship grant for fundamental research of the Research Foundations Flanders in 2016. Before that, she obtained her master’s degree in Clinical and Health Psychology from KU Leuven in July 2015. For her master’s thesis, she collaborated in the Reproducibility Project Psychology under the supervision of prof. Wolf Vanpaemel. Her clinical internship was at the University Psychiatric Center in Leuven, where she provided psychological counseling and assessment to older adults with neurocognitive challenges.