Els van Wijngaarden

Els van Wijngaarden works as an Associate Professor and Research Group Leader in Contemporary Meanings of Ageing and Dying at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen (NL).

Els was a Visiting James Martin Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing from 4 October 2021 to 4 January 2022. During her stay at the Institute, she was working on a project titled ‘Memento Mori Revisited: unravelling the role of choice regarding death and dying in old age’, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). In this project she explores the growing tendency of people to exercise choice and control over the time and manner of dying, and how this may influence the way we actually age and die. She also was an Academic Visitor at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing from 1 February 2018 to 31 March 2018 with a grant from the Dr. Catharine van Tussenbroek Foundation.

Els holds a (cum laude) Master's degree in religious studies. In November 2016, she finished her PhD on ‘Older people who consider their lives to be completed and no longer worth living’, which was awarded the prestigious Research Prize 2017 of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation.