Lara Vesentini

Lara Vesentini (°1976) is a postdoctoral assistant at the Mental Health and Wellbeing Research Group (MENT) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She supervises several PhD-students on topics related to mental health and psychosocial needs. She is experienced in survey studies and qualitative methodology, and is interested in sexual health.

Her academic career started at the Hogeschool PXL doing research about traffic safety and sexuality of elderly and continued at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, LUCAS, doing research about elderly care. In 2013, she started at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, as predoctoral assistant at MENT and in 2021 she obtained the academic degree of Doctor in Social Health Science, with her dissertation entitled ‘Intimacy and Sexuality in the Psychotherapeutic Relationships’.

Since her appointment in 2013, Lara has a teaching assignment at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, mainly focused on epidemiology and conducting scientific research. Furthermore, she is active at administrative level: She is member of the steering committee for the Manama-education Occupational Medicine and Youth Health and Adolescent Medicine, the education council of Medicine, the Faculty Council of Medicine and Pharmacy, the Faculty Board of Medicine and Pharmacy, and member and secretary of the department of Public Health.