Wout Saelens is a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Centre for Urban History at the University of Antwerp and the Social History of Capitalism (SHOC) research group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research is situated at the intersection of energy, pollution, inequality, consumption and material culture in the early modern and modern history of the Low Countries. Saelens studied medieval history at the University of Ghent (2015) and obtained in 2021 his PhD at the University of Antwerp and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel with a dissertation on the fossil-fuel transition, viewed from a consumer perspective. His current project, funded by the FWO-Flanders, studies the political ecology, environmental law and popular awareness of coal smoke in the 19th century.