Dr. Ike Picone is Associate Professor and chairman of the Department of Communication Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He heads the News: Uses, Strategies & Engagements unit of research group imec-SMIT (Studies on Media, Innovation and Technology) and directs the Flemish Knowledge Centre Media Research. He is part of the international team working on the annual Digital News Report of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. The common thread within his research is the study of evolutions in news consumption. He lectures on the relationship between journalism, technology, democracy and media use, mainly in the MsC in Journalism and Media in Europe. He is a member of the Journalism Council and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hannah Arendt Institute.

• Ike Picone is since April 2006 researcher at the SMIT. His research focuses on user activity in a digital and social media environment. He specializes in qualitative user research, especially semi-experimental digital ethnography, with links to Living Labs, Proxy Technology Assessment and methods like in-depth/diary/expert/laddering interviews and focus groups. http://www.ikepicone.be
• Since December 2010, Ike Picone is Senior Researcher at the IBBT-SMIT-VUB research group. In this function he is responsible for project acquisition, coordination within research projects, counseling junior researchers and valorisation. smit.vub.ac.be
• Since Octobre 2015, Ike Picone acted as Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences and Staff Member at imec-SMIT.