Dr. Annelien Smets is Research Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Solvay Business School. She teaches in the Bsc. Communicatiewetenschappen and Msc. Digital Media in Europe. Her course topics deal with media and digital economics, digital business models.

Dr. Smets is senior researcher at imec-SMIT (Studies in Media, Innovation and Technology) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and member of the research unit on Media Economics & Policy, where she acts as the principle investigator on recommender systems. Her main research interests are:

• Recommender Systems & Personalization
• Media Markets
• Digital Economics & Innovation 
• Discovery & Serendipity
• Platform Urbanism

Currently, she is project lead of the strategic research project (SBO) Serendipity Engine, funded by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). She is also Track 1 lead of the Strategic Research Programme (SRP) on media economics. Annelien is Chair of the Serendipity Academic Researchers Network.

Annelien holds a PhD in Media and Communication Studies and a Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence, specializing in speech and language technologies.