BdG received an MA in Philosophy, an MA in Experimental Psychology and a PhD in Philosophy from Louvain University in Belgium. Her current research focuses on face and body recognition and, recently, the neuroscience of art. She has received seven previous research grants and in 2012 was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) scientific grant for the study of cultural differences in emotional body expression. In the last ten years her research has resulted in 155 peer-reviewed articles and 22 invited chapters in professional books.

In May 2010, Scientific American published an invited article expanding on the broad impact of her work on unconscious vision and in July 2011, Discovery Science (a subsidiary of Discovery Channel) broadcast an episode covering her work as part of the US science program “Through the Wormhole.” She has authored or co-authored three professional books covering her work and is currently has a fourth in preparation for Oxford University Press entitled “The Emotional Body.”

She has served on the editorial board of several professional journals and is currently Editor in Chief of Frontiers in Emotion Science. Professor deGelder has been Ad hoc Member of advisory panels in the US NIH and NSF and, in Europe, a member of the NWO (Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research)/Veni commission, the Heart Foundation, permanent member of the Belgian Science Foundation/Psychology commission, a frequent advisor for ANR, CNRS (France), INSERM, The Wellcome Trust.

She has also been a Member of several advisory research panels of the European Commission for FET, ICT programs of FP6, FP7, the ESF and outside EU, NIH and NSF.