Chelly Maes, PhD

Prof. Chelly Maes is an Assistant Professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in the Department of Communication and Information Sciences. She previously held a postdoctoral position at the Winston National Center on Technology, Brain, and Psychological Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a member of the Social Environments and Adolescence (SEA) Lab led by Prof. Maheux. She has also served as a Guest Professor in Communication Sciences at the University of Antwerp and remains affiliated with the Media Psychology Lab at KU Leuven, where she completed her doctoral studies. She was the Student and Early Career Representative for the Children, Adolescents, and Media Division of the International Communication Association from 2022 to 2024. Her research examines how digital media experiences relate to key developmental tasks, including body image, sexuality, identity development, and mental health, drawing on theoretical perspectives from communication science and developmental psychology.  At KU Leuven, she co-supervises three PhD projects addressing the relationship between digital media and youth development from a multidisciplinary perspective. Her ongoing collaborations include research on adolescents’ pornography use from a positive psychological perspective (with Thi Willems), digital media use among youth with visible differences (with Laure Dedecker), and the role of digital media in the lives of children with visual impairment (with Esmée Mooren). Her research is supported by competitive funding from Horizon Europe, BOF, and FWO. She has published extensively in Q1-ranked international journals across five ISI-WOS domains, authored book chapters, and presented her work more than 30 times at major international conferences.  Prof. Maes is also a frequent speaker at academic and public events and regularly contributes to public discourse through media appearances.