Researcher biography
Marleen Easton is Professor and chair of the research group ‘Governing & Policing Security’ (GaPS) https://www.gaps-ugent.be at the Department of Public Governance & Management https://www.ugent.be/eb/publiek-management/en at Ghent University.
She has more than twenty five years of experience conducting mostly qualitative, empirical research on policing and security related topics that include processes of (de)militarisation, community policing, radicalization, police (re)organisations, police culture, citizen participation, innovations in policing and the policing-science nexus. Her current research focuses on three research lines: (1) the governance of security in relation to flows, (2) innovations in relation to technology and security and (3) knowledge exchange processes. For her full academic profile see: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0104-0533
Easton combined her position at Ghent University with the position of Adjunct Professor at Griffith Criminology (2017-2022) in relation to her research on Port Security. She is still participating in the Evolving Securities Initiative and runs the ESI Ghent hub (ESI@GNE). Since March 2022 she is Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Justice at QUT, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. In July 2022 she has been appointed Honorary Professor at the Centre for Policy Futures at UQ, University of Queensland, Australia. Her aim is to further strengthen the Strategic Institutional partnership between UQ and UGent in the field of Knowledge Exchange.
Since 2000 she combines her academic career with an active role as board member of the Belgian Centre for Policing and Security where interaction between researchers and practitioners is stimulated. Between 2014 and 2021 she was president of the Innovation Centre for Security (INNOS/IUNGOS) in Belgium.