Professor of Youth Work Stijn Sieckelinck was born in Duffel in Belgium in 1980 and grew up in Mechelen. After studying social and philosophical pedagogy at the Catholic University of Leuven (1998-2003), he was employed as a youth worker in Ghent. He then did his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) (2004-2009) which resulted in the publication of his book The Best of Youth. A philosophical-pedagogical perspective of young people and their idealism. Stijn was subsequently a researcher at various knowledge institutions such as the Forum Institute for Multicultural Issues (2010-2013), the Netherlands School for Public Administration, (2011-2013), Utrecht University (2014-2017) and McGill University in Montreal, Canada (2017). He focuses on social education issues. As a 'thinker in a world of doing', he seeks to contribute to better insights and approaches in science, practice and policy that benefit young people. In his book Reradicalising. Recruiting for a Better World (2017), Stijn presents a pedagogical vision of youth radicalisation. He is now putting the finishing touches to a book on the identity formation of young people in a polarised society titled Dream Teams. Working together on resilient identity formation of young people.

Besides his work as a researcher, Stijn Sieckelinck is also a methodology developer and advisor to governments in the Netherlands and abroad. His appointment to the research group Youth Work returns him back to his first love of working with young people, and he aims to draw awareness to the importance of youth work for creating a healthy society.